Dr Matthew Denwood

Lecturer in Production Animal Health

Large Animal Clinical Sciences & Public Health
School of Veterinary Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
University of Glasgow
Glasgow
G61 1QH

Tel.: +44 (0)141 330 3437
Fax: +44 (0)141 330 5602
E-mail: matthew.denwood@glasgow.ac.uk

Research Interests

My main research interests are in the application of computationally intensive statistical techniques to complex biological problems, particularly using techniques such as Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). I am also interested in ways of using statistical methods, decision support tools and economic modelling to inform decisions on farms and help improve productivity and welfare of production animals. I have ongoing research collaborations in a broad range of epidemiological contexts, including modelling parasite distributions, disease surveillance, appropriate handling of count data such as faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) data, and in analysis of a wide range of clinical and ecological datasets.

Research Grants

"Development and quantitative validation of sustainable donkey parasite control programmes" - 1 year masters student project funded by The Donkey Sanctuary to develop statistical process control approaches to the control of nematode parasites. An advert for the masters post (to start December 2012) is available from the following link: DS_advert_2012 - please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or are interested in applying.

"Quantifying the comparative efficacy of sustainable parasite control programmes using robust estimates of donkey faecal worm egg count variability" - 1 year masters student project funded by The Donkey Sanctuary. 2010-current.

Academic History

Lecturer in Production Animal Health, University of Glasgow, 2012-current.

Post doctoral research assistant - Why some hosts have high parasite burdens, and the implications for the design of sustainable control strategies, University of Glasgow, 2011-2012.

Research fellow with EPIC - The Scottish Government's Centre of Excellence in Epidemiology, Population Health and Disease Control, University of Glasgow, 2010-2011.

PhD, University of Glasgow - 'Use of Bayesian MCMC to analyse the distribution of faecal egg counts' supervised by Sandy love, Giles Innocent and Stuart Reid, 2006-2010.  The thesis can be downloaded from here.

BVMS, University of Glasgow, 2001-2006.

Professional Affiliations

BioSS associate: 2010-current

Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (MRCVS): 2006-current

Publications

An up to date publication list can be found on my Google scholar page and all publications are available to download from my Mendeley home page.

2011

The prevalences of Salmonella Genomic Island 1 variants in human and animal Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 are distinguishable using a Bayesian approach

An ecological approach to assessing the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance in animal and human populations

Assessing the probability of acquisition of meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a dog using a nested stochastic simulation model and logistic regression sensitivity analysis

From phenotype to genotype: a Bayesian solution

2010

Associations between the presence of virulence determinants and the epidemiology and ecology of zoonotic Escherichia coli

A quantitative approach to improving the analysis of faecal worm egg count data (PhD thesis)

Comparison of three alternative methods for analysis of equine Faecal Egg Count Reduction Test data

2008

The distribution of the pathogenic nematode Nematodirus battus in lambs is zero inflated

Development and evaluation of an online computer-aided learning (CAL) package to promote small-animal welfare

Software Links

Authored R packages

A suite of functions to allow the R statistical programming language to interact with the MCMC tool 'Just Another Gibbs Sampler' (JAGS). The R package runjags allows any user specified model to be run in JAGS, with several functions intended to automate the process of setting up and monitoring the simulation for convergence, and returns the simulation results as an R object. The package also contains functions to automate submission and retrieval of jobs (either JAGS models or arbitrary R code) to and from an Xgrid distributed computing cluster from within R. The R package bayescount contains functions to analyse count datasets, including feacal egg count reduction tests, using a variety of (zero-inflated) distributions implemented using MCMC. This package also contains functions to perform power calculations for both FEC and FECRT studies. Both packages, along with the software needed to run them, are freely available from the links provided.

Movements model

An educational tool to demonstrate the effects of sheep movements on the transmission of infectious disease within the UK, developed in collaboration with Rowland Kao. While not in any way intended to be used as a predictive model, the use of real movement data (pixelated to 10km grid squares and locations randomly changed to prevent identification of individual premises) allows the effect of different mock disease outbreaks in the UK to be visualised. Currently available here (opens in a new window).

Catteries and Kennels CAL

An educational 'Computer Assisted Learning' program designed to augment the veterinary undergraduate teaching on the subject of small animal husbandry. Currently freely available from the University of Glasgow here.