Research Podcasts – Veterinary Science on the Move

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are delighted to be joined by Prof Dan O’Neill, Professor of Companion Animal Epidemiology. We discuss extreme conformations, what is health and how that compares to disease? Is freedom from disease mean you are healthy? Every animal should have the capacity to perform every normal physical activity for that species, is it innately healthy? If only we had a tool to assess, well Prof Dan O’Neill and colleagues in the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare have come up with a tool that everyone can use: https://www.innatehealthassessment.orgVeterinarians tend to work in the salvage medicine (dealing with a medical problem) and help owners/carers with risk reduction for example with brachycephalic breed, though we don’t often get involved with the root cause analysis of extreme confirmation, solving the problem for future generations of dogs’ health and welfare. Definitions matter. We have a definition of extreme confirmation, and now we have the Innate Health Assessment tool. It is free to use for everyone, dog owners (current and prospective) and breeders. Now we have the Innate Health Assessment tool, it is up to all of us to change the world. We hope that you enjoy. This is the website to visit:https://www.innatehealthassessment.org To Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 68 Innate Health Assessment with Prof Dan O’Neill. Published on July 31 2026If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email podcast@rvc.ac.uk.We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review.

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are joined by Dr Helen Stolp, who is a senior lecturer in pharmacology here at the RVC. Helen tells us about her journey from universities in Tasmania, Melbourne, Oxford, and Kings College London before landing her current role at the RVC. Helen studies the mechanism of normal and abnormal brain development, looking to further understand pre-term brain injury and therapeutics involved. Does the role of mitochondria have and effect? How do endothelial cells in brain respond to chronic inflammatory response? How much of a barrier is the blood brain barrier? We hope that you enjoy. Selected reading materialhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38629845/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38728929/To Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 67 Brain development and injury with Dr Helen Stolp. Published on July 14 2026If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email podcast@rvc.ac.uk.We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review.

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are joined by Sarah Caufield, who is one of our PhD students here at the RVC. Sarah was a rotating intern with us prior to successfully completing an internal medicine residency in private practice. She returned to the RVC to start a PhD studying the association of intestinal fibrosis and the dysregulation of the local renin angiotensin aldosterone system in dogs with chronic enteropathy. We speak about her journey which led to this research and what she has achieved and what she hopes to achieve by the end of her PhD. We hope that you enjoy. Selected reading materialhttps://academic.oup.com/jvim/article/40/1/aalaf060/8431565To Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 66 Chronic Inflammatory Enteropathy with Dr Sarah Caulfield. Published on June 26 2026If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email podcast@rvc.ac.uk.We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review.

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are joined by Prof Dirk Werling, Professor of Molecular Biology here at the RVC. Prof Werling is a regular contributor to this podcast over the years and is always keen to showcase what research that we are doing at the RVC.  Today we discuss Organoids, in vitro cellular constructs that resemble structure and function of organs, following on from our previous podcast on organ-on-a chip. From disease modelling, treatment trials and individual medicine, this is a very interesting space. We hope that you enjoy. To find out more about Prof Dirk Werling, use the following link https://www.rvc.ac.uk/about/our-people/dirk-werlingSelected reading materialhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33691792/To Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 65 Organoids with Prof Dirk Werling. Published on Apr 24 2026If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email podcast@rvc.ac.uk. We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review.

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are joined by Dr Camilla Pegram, Lecturer in Veterinary Epidemiology here at the RVC. Dr Pegram is RVC through and through have completed her veterinary degree here and then returned for a Master's and has recently completed a PhD looking at applying causal inference methods to emulate randomised clinical trials using VetCompass anonymised clinical records. If you wish to understand, like me, what causal inference is and how it can help, have a listen. We hope that you enjoy.To find out more about Dr Pegram's work, use the following link https://www.rvc.ac.uk/about/our-people/camilla-pegramSelected reading material: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31037739https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33754373 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36708945https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31589340To Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 64 Causal Inference with Dr Camilla Pegram. Published on Feb 7 2025f you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email podcast@rvc.ac.uk. We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review.

Welcome to the RVC research podcast, where we are joined by Dirk Werling, Professor of Molecular Immunology about the technology which is now available to us at the RVC ‘organ on a chip’. Professor Werling shares his obvious passion for this technology and how with his lead involvement in the RVC’s new Centre for Vaccinology and Regenerative Medicine, this can help our research and help with the 4R principle of animal welfare. We hope that you enjoy listening to our conversation as much as we enjoyed recording it.To find out more about Prof Werling’s work, use the following linkhttps://www.rvc.ac.uk/about/our-people/dirk-werlingTo read more about the Centre for Vaccinology and Regenerative Medicinehttps://www.rvc.ac.uk/research/facilities-and-resources/centre-for-vaccinology-and-regenerative-medicineSelected reading materialhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34150901/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211913215300310?via%3Dihubhttps://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/22/18/6889https://journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/16/6/dmm050113/316778/A-systematic-review-of-kidney-on-a-chip-basedTo Cite this podcast: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 63 Organ on a chip with Professor Dirk Werling. Published on May 3 2024If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email dbarfield@rvc.ac.uk or podcast@rvc.ac.uk. We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast, Spotify, Acast or your preferred podcast platform and kindly write us a review. 

Today we are delighted to have Dr Dan O’Neill joining Brian and myself in our remote studio. Dan is Senior Lecturer in Companion Animal Epidemiology here at the RVC and leader of the VetCompass Programme. Dan eloquently describes his story. After twenty-two years in general practice wanting to find evidence for treating or informing clients on the common conditions that he saw, he took a leap to find those answers. After leaving the keys to his practice as he left one Saturday, he started a Master’s in veterinary epidemiology the following Monday. A PhD followed and he has stayed true to his word to find answers to those problems and with just under 100 papers published so far, he shows no signs of slowing down. A delight to speak to and be in his company, we hope that you enjoy the podcast as much as we did recording it. To find out more about Dan use the following link:https://www.rvc.ac.uk/about/our-people/dan-o-neill For more about VetCompass:https://www.rvc.ac.uk/vetcompass  Here are some links to some of Dan’s papers:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31660657/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32661183/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33325082/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31037739/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32751913/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33128852/To Cite this podcast as: Dom Barfield. RVC Research Podcast 62 VetCompass with Dr Dan O’Neill. Published on Apr 02 2021 If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email dbarfield@rvc.ac.uk; tweet @dombarfield. We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast or Acast and kindly write us a review.

Today we are delighted to have Professor Richard Kock remotely recording with Brian and myself all appropriately social distancing in our homes. Richard is Professor here at the RVC in Wildlife Health and Emerging Diseases. Apt timing perhaps to record this perhaps. Richard is the last person known to diagnose a case of Rinderpest in the world and assisted with his team to help eradicate this virus. Richard has been involved in many other projects globally and he speaks about a few of them with us today. Humbling and inspiring, Richard speaks modestly about his involvement in One Health, and why we all need to be more involved. We hope that you enjoy, stay safe.Here are some links to some of Richard’s papers:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21724764https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23798687https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25655542https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27094147https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28228144https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25005349 To cite this podcast: Dominic Barfield RVC Research Podcast 60 Eradication of Rinderpest with Prof Richard Kock Apr 17 2020If you have any comments about this podcast, please get in touch: email dbarfield@rvc.ac.uk. We would greatly appreciate your time to rate us on Apple podcast or Acast and kindly write us a review.