Members of the Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ)

The BIOHAZ Panel brings together highly qualified risk assessment experts from a number of European nationalities with expertise in a range of relevant fields.

Panel members are appointed by the EFSA Management Board for three years renewable. Appointments are made on the basis of proven scientific excellence following an open call for applications and a rigorous selection procedure. The Panel regularly sets up Working Groups involving external scientists with relevant expertise to deal with specific matters and to help produce scientific opinions. All experts working for EFSA sign a Declaration of Interests to safeguard EFSA’s commitment to independence.

View the Declarations of Interests and biographies of BIOHAZ Panel members for 2009 - 2012

BIOHAZ Panel Members and their areas of expertise

Birgit Noerrung, Chair

  • Food microbiology
  • Food Hygiene
  • Microbiological Criteria
  • Decontamination
  • HACCP
  • Food-borne zoonoses
  • Food-borne viruses
  • Risk assessment

John Sofos, Vice-Chair

  • Food Hygiene
  • Food Microbiology
  • Food Technology
  • Food-borne pathogen ecology
  • Food-borne pathogen control
  • Carcass and meat decontamination
  • Antimicrobial resistance
  • Microbiological criteria
  • Microbial risk assessment

Herbert Budka, Vice-Chair

  • TSEs (epidemiology, pathology, diagnostic, exposure assessment).
  • Infectious diseases of the nervous system, in particular neuroviral diseases.
  • Neuropathology

Olivier Andreoletti

  • Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
  • Infectious agents pathogenesis
  • Veterinary pathology
  • Diagnosis
  • Biosafety

Sava Buncic

  • Veterinary Public health
  • Food (meat) hygiene
  • Spread and control of microbial food-borne pathogens along the food (meat)chain
  • Meat inspection
  • Abattoir process hygiene including transport, lairaging and slaughterline
  • Food safety aspects of animal welfare
  • Behaviour and diversity of microbial food-borne pathogens during food processing and storage
  • Antimicrobial treatments of food
  • Food chain-, GMP/GHP- and HAACCP – based food safety systems

John D. Collins

  • Epidemiology and risk assessment of food-borne infections and their control and prevention
  • Meat and poultry meat plants: assessment of operational hygiene
  • Ante- and post-mortem inspection of food animals
  • Management of animal waste on land used for food production
  • Approach to food-borne emerging risks
  • Antimicrobial resistance
  • TSEs: on-farm and in-plant measures aimed at protection of human health

John Griffin

  • TSEs
  • Animal By-Products
  • Epidemiology and Risk assessment
  • Animal health
  • Public health

Tine Hald

  • Zoonosis epidemiology
  • Surveillance and control of food-borne pathogens including zoonoses
  • Source attribution of food-borne diseases
  • Epidemiological methods
  • Quantitative microbial risk assessment

Arie Havelaar

  • Epidemiology of food-borne zoonoses (Salmonella, Campylobacter, etc)
  • Food Hygiene and Microbiology
  • Microbiological criteria
  • Decontamination of meat carcasses (antimicrobial treatments)
  • Quantitative microbiological risk assessment

James Hope

  • Analytical and Biological Chemistry, particularly the structure and function of proteins
  • Applied Genetics, particularly in breeding for resistance to prion diseases, and transgenic animals
  • Cell and Molecular Biology
  • Prion Diseases/Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, their Risk Assessment and the communication of Risk
  • Endocrinology, particularly the hypothalmo-pituitary-adrenal axis in humans, rodents and small ruminants
  • Extensive Bibliography of Research Communications [Hirsch Index, 31]
  • Basic Epidemiology

Guenter Klein

  • Antimicrobial resistance
  • Food-borne viruses
  • Meat inspection in all food-producing species
  • Food Hygiene and Microbiology
  • Microbiological criteria
  • Biological risks associated with composite products and with fresh produce
  • Decontamination of meat carcasses (antimicrobial treatments)

Kostas Koutsoumanis

  • Risk Assessment of pathogens in foods
  • Predictive microbiology
  • Stochastic modelling of microbial behaviour
  • Stress adaptation of pathogenic bacteria
  • Microbial physiology

James McLauchlin

  • Public Health microbiology
  • Food-borne Illness
  • Laboratory methods
  • Infection and microbial intoxications
  • Monitoring and surveillance
  • Epidemiology and risk assessment
  • Molecular epidemiology
  • Molecular biology

Christine Mueller Graf

  • Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Assessment
  • Risk Assessment Biohazards (zoonoses)
  • Epidemiology
  • Quantitative Microbiology
  • Animal health and welfare
  • Risk Assessment of animal welfare
  • Parasitology
  • Biometry/Mathematical Modelling
  • Ecology, Population Biology and Evolution

Christophe Nguyen-the

  • Food microbiology
  • Food-borne Pathogenic bacteria
  • Impact of processing on microbiology
  • Microbiological risk assessment

Luisa Peixe

  • Bacteriology
  • Population structure and adaptation features of bacterial species (Salmonella enterica, E. coli, Enterococcus spp., Bacillus pumilus and Acinetobacter spp.)
  • Antimicrobial Resistance - ecology, epidemiology and evolution
  • Risk Assessment of food-borne resistance

Miguel Prieto Maradona

  • Epidemiology of food-borne zoonoses (Salmonella, Campylobacter, etc)
  • Processing of animal by- products
  • Meat inspection in food-producing species
  • Food Hygiene and Microbiology
  • Decontamination of meat carcasses (antimicrobial treatments)

Antonia Ricci

  • Salmonella
  • Epidemiology of food-borne zoonoses
  • Antimicrobial Resistance
  • Food Microbiology

John Threlfall

  • Food-borne zoonoses
  • Antimicrobial resistance in food-borne pathogens
  • Molecular epidemiology
  • Diagnosis, typing and characterisation of bacterial pathogens
  • Salmonella and salmonellosis
  • Laboratory contingency
  • Biosafety

Ivar Vagsholm

  • Veterinary epidemiology and public health
  • Food-borne zoonoses epidemiology and control (i.e. Salmonella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, (EHEC) enterhaemorragic Escherichia coli, antibiotic resistance)
  • QMRA for food-borne diseases (Salmonella in pork), import risk assessment (rabies, iechinococcus multilocularis, BSE)
  • Animal health economics and benefit cost analysis
  • Evaluation of meat inspection and food safety systems
  • Epidemiology and control of fish diseases
  • Design and implementation of monitoring and surveillance systems and cost effectiveness
  • TSE epidemiology, risk assessment and control
  • Epidemiological inference

Emmanuel Vanopdenbosch

  • Prion diseases
  • Epidemiology and risk assessment
  • Veterinary virology
  • Diagnosis
  • Enzootic and epizotic viral diseases
  • Animal health
  • Quality assurance of testing laboratories
  • Veterinary Pathology
  • Zootechnics

View the Declarations of Interests of former BIOHAZ Panel members for 2006 - 2009