Michael Pearce is a veterinary graduate with specialist epidemiology qualifications. After 7 years in mixed practice in Australia and the UK, he spent 20 years working in veterinary and public health disease surveillance, outbreak investigations and epidemiological research in Australia, Indonesia and UK, and a further 20 years in the veterinary pharmaceutical industry developing vaccines and parasiticides for a variety of livestock species. He is currently working with GALVmed leading an international programme to develop new diagnostics and treatments for animal trypanosomiasis.