Senior Lecturer in Preventive Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge

Dr Mark Holmes is a Senior Lecturer in Preventive Veterinary Medicine in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Cambridge. He is also Director of the Cambridge Clinical Research Outreach Programme and a Director of Studies in Clinical Veterinary Medicine at Churchill College.

Dr Holmes leads a research group whose current focus of research follows their discovery of a new livestock-associated MRSA harbouring a mecA homologue (now named mecC). The new MRSA was discovered during an epidemiological project looking at the transmission of S. aureus in dairy cows by one of their PhD students, Laura Garcia Alvarez. The original isolate was whole genome sequenced and analysed in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute by Matt Holden and colleagues. Dr Holmes and his team subsequently obtained funding from Defra and the MRC to investigate the discovery further. They are currently undertaking studies to establish the prevalence and diversity of the new MRSA using whole genome sequencing and other techniques.

He also has interests in clinical research (including animal welfare) and evidence-based veterinary medicine and has published a number of papers and books in these areas.