Prof. Matthew Baylis

Matthew Baylis is a leading UK scientist working in the area of One Health, climate change impacts on health, and vector-borne diseases, focussing mainly on Africa and UK/Europe.

Matthew studied for his degree (1982-1985) and PhD (1985-1989) at the University of Oxford. He then joined the University of Bristol but was based in Kenya for four years (1989-1993). After, he worked at the Institute for Animal Health in the UK, rising to become the Head of Epidemiology in 2002. In 2005 Matthew moved to take up a Chair/professor position at the University of Liverpool (UoL). Since 2019 he has been the Executive Dean of the Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences at UoL.

In 2007, with Fellowship funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Matthew established the Liverpool University Climate and Infectious Diseases of Animals group (LUCINDA) which undertakes research into viruses spread by midges (bluetongue, African horse sickness, Schmallenberg) and mosquitoes (West Nile, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, Zika), as well as plague, tick-borne diseases and liver fluke. He is using Big Data approaches to develop a comprehensive pathogen-host database (https://eid2.liverpool.ac.uk/) as a tool to help predict, and hopefully prevent, the next pandemic.

In 2021, Matthew was appointed interim director of the Pandemic Institute in Liverpool; a new partnership, hosted by the University of Liverpool, which aims to protect the world better from the risk of future pandemics.