Dr Peter Hunt: using molecular techniques to benefit livestock producers

Dr Peter Hunt: improving control of ruminant parasites

Dr Peter Hunt is using molecular biology techniques to develop improved methods for managing parasites of livestock in grazing systems.

• 21 January 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Dr Hunt is a CSIRO Research Scientist based at the FD McMaster Laboratory in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.

His research is currently focused on gastrointestinal nematodes and the diseases they cause in cattle, sheep and goats, which cost graziers in excess of A$350 million each year in lost production and control measures.

To enable more effective control of these parasites, with less reliance on chemicals, Dr Hunt is working with collaborators in Armidale, Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne, to develop ways of:

• more efficiently breeding livestock that is resistant to disease
• more effectively and comprehensively monitoring disease organisms.

Specifically, Dr Hunt is working to map the gene variants in sheep that contribute to resistance or susceptibility to nematode parasites in different breeds of sheep. Understanding how these genes work can help researchers design better ways to manage sheeps' natural immune response to parasites.

Dr Hunt is involved in projects aimed at:

• developing tests to identify and quantify sheep nematodes, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
• discovering genes and gene markers for virulence, geographic origin and drug resistance in Barber’s pole worm (Haemonchus contortus) to develop new diagnostics that can help graziers manage the various strains of this parasite

  Dr Hunt's research is focused on gastrointestinal nematodes and the diseases they cause in cattle, sheep and goats.
• discovering gene markers that can assist in breeding sheep with resistance to gastrointestinal nematodes
• developing gastro-intestinal cell culture systems for testing interactions between nematode parasites and epithelial cells.

Background

After completing his doctorate in 1996, Dr Hunt undertook a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, investigating the phylogenetic relationships between the hemoglobin genes in nematodes. A highlight was discovering a hemoglobin gene that acts as a shading pigment in the eye-like organ of adult female M. nigrescens.

Joining CSIRO in 1998 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Plant Industry, Dr Hunt continued to study the expression, evolution and function of plant hemoglobin genes.

He contributed to the phylogenetic characterisation of a new family of hemoglobins. He also discovered that a gene from Arabidopsis thaliana, GLB1, could increase hypoxia tolerance in plants.

Since 2002, Dr Hunt has worked as a Research Scientist in CSIRO's Division of Livestock Industries, developing tools for the objective assessment of livestock diseases and their causative organisms.

Academic qualifications

Dr Hunt was awarded a Bachelor of Rural Science with First Class Honours from the University of New England.

He earned a Doctor of Philosophy while undertaking research with CSIRO Division of Animal Health (now Division of Livestock Industries). His thesis was entitled 'Isolation and characterisation of dominant Ivermectin resistance mutations from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.'

Achievements

In addition to leading and participating in research projects, Dr Hunt also:

• supervises undergraduate (project), Honours, and postgraduate students
• is the biosafety officer responsible for AQIS, OGTR & APVMA matters at CSIRO's FD McMaster Laboratory.

Dr Hunt has has produced more than 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Read more about CSIRO Livestock Industries.