Stephanie Widdison

Contact

• workRoom C01 Gateway Building
  Sutton Bonington Campus
  Sutton Bonington
  Leicestershire
  LE12 5RD
  UK
• work0115 9516396
• Stephanie.Widdison@nottingham.ac.uk

Biography

Dr Widdison graduated from Imperial College, London with a B.Sc. in Microbiology and then completed a PhD at the University of Warwick on the 'Evolution of Pneumococcal Virulence Determinants'. During the course of her PhD she was able to identify homologues to virulence determinants of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a causative pathogen of pneumonia and meningitis, in commensal streptococci. These could have the potential to transfer between species through homologous recombination.

Her post-doctoral career started at the Institute for Animal Health in Compton where she took a post in what was to become the Bovine Genomics group led by Dr Tracey Coffey. She was then promoted to Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in 2010. She initially concentrated on the use of molecular technologies to study the bovine immune response to Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis, both in vitro and in vivo. Her research has included performing microarray studies to better understand the interactions between key host antigen presenting cells and infection with M. bovis and also closely related pathogens. She has also used real-time PCR to study the cytokine and chemokine repertoire within the lymph nodes of experimentally infected cattle. Studies of the immune response to bovine tuberculosis highlighted the importance of chemokines and their receptors to control of disease, and this led Dr Widdison to characterise both the bovine chemokine and receptor repertoire. In doing so, Dr Widdison was able to identify several previously un-characterised genes, one of which is now the subject of a patent application for a novel diagnostic tool.

Whilst at the Institute for Animal Health, Dr Widdison became involved in in vivo mastitis trials comparing infection with closely related isolates of Streptococcus uberis, run in collaboration with Prof. James Leigh at the SVMS. Following Dr Widdison's move to the SVMS in 2011 she has continued studies into the immune response to mastitis as well as supervising two PhD students, who also moved to the SVMS last year, in their studies on the effect of genetic polymorphisms on susceptibility to mastitis.

Recent Publications

• RUSSELL CD, WIDDISON S, LEIGH JA and COFFEY TJ, 2012. Identification Of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms In The Bovine Toll-Like Receptor 1 Gene And Association With Health Traits In Cattle. Veterinary Research. 43(1), 17 (In Press.)
• WIDDISON S and COFFEY TJ, 2011. Cattle And Chemokines: Evidence For Species-Specific Evolution Of The Bovine Chemokine System. Animal Genetics. 42(4), 341-53
• WIDDISON S, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2011. Early Response Of Bovine Alveolar Macrophages To Infection With Live And Heat-Killed Mycobacterium Bovis. Developmental And Comparative Immunology. 35(5), 580-91
• WIDDISON S, SIDDIQUI N, EASTON V, LAWRENCE F, ASHLEY G, WERLING D, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2010. The Bovine Chemokine Receptors And Their Mrna Abundance In Mononuclear Phagocytes. Bmc Genomics. 11, 439

• View all publications

• RUSSELL CD, WIDDISON S, LEIGH JA and COFFEY TJ, 2012. Identification Of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms In The Bovine Toll-Like Receptor 1 Gene And Association With Health Traits In Cattle. Veterinary Research. 43(1), 17 (In Press.)
• WIDDISON S and COFFEY TJ, 2011. Cattle And Chemokines: Evidence For Species-Specific Evolution Of The Bovine Chemokine System. Animal Genetics. 42(4), 341-53
• WIDDISON S, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2011. Early Response Of Bovine Alveolar Macrophages To Infection With Live And Heat-Killed Mycobacterium Bovis. Developmental And Comparative Immunology. 35(5), 580-91
• WIDDISON S, SIDDIQUI N, EASTON V, LAWRENCE F, ASHLEY G, WERLING D, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2010. The Bovine Chemokine Receptors And Their Mrna Abundance In Mononuclear Phagocytes. Bmc Genomics. 11, 439
• WIDDISON S, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2009. Correlation Between Lymph Node Pathology And Chemokine Expression During Bovine Tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (Edinburgh, Scotland). 89(6), 417-22
• WIDDISON S, WATSON M, PIERCY J, HOWARD C and COFFEY TJ, 2008. Granulocyte Chemotactic Properties Of M. Tuberculosis Versus M. Bovis-Infected Bovine Alveolar Macrophages. Molecular Immunology. 45(3), 740-9
• WIDDISON S, ASHLEY GR, HOWARD CJ and COFFEY TJ, 2007. Characterisation Of Bovine Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase. Veterinary Immunology And Immunopathology. 117(3-4), 302-9
• WIDDISON S, SCHREUDER LJ, VILLARREAL-RAMOS B, HOWARD CJ, WATSON M and COFFEY TJ, 2006. Cytokine Expression Profiles Of Bovine Lymph Nodes: Effects Of Mycobacterium Bovis Infection And Bacille Calmette-Guérin Vaccination. Clinical And Experimental Immunology. 144(2), 281-9
• THOM, ML, WIDDISON, S, COFFEY, TJ, HOWARD, CJ and HOPE, JC, 2005. Antigen presenting cells differ in their response to mycobacteria Immunology. 116(1), 22-22
• TAYLOR GM, WIDDISON S, BROWN IN, YOUNG D and MOLLESON T, 2000. A Mediaeval Case of Lepromatous Leprosy from 13-14th Century Orkney, Scotland Journal of Archaeological Sciences. 27, 1133-38