Conny Turni

Dr Turni leads a national and international reference laboratory for respiratory bacterial pathogens where identification, serotyping, genotyping, sequencing and antimicrobial sensitivity testing is performed. Her team works with the poultry, pig and cattle industries, as well as major veterinary pharmaceutical companies around the world. The group performs vaccine efficacy trials, provides advice on vaccine strain selection, performs antimicrobial sensitivity testing and evaluates candidate novel antimicrobial agents. Essentially, the services provided by the group underpins the entire Australian prevention and control programs for the major bacterial respiratory diseases of pigs, poultry and cattle.

Her research has extended beyond vaccines and antibiotic sensitivity to determining optimal sample sites for collecting pathogens, understanding the association of different pathogens with disease, development of animal infection models, classification of bacteria and epidemiology of pathogens. Conny supervises PhD students with diverse projects such as antimicrobial sensitivity studies, risk factors and profiling of pathogenic Escherichia coli associated with avian collibacillosis, alternatives to antibiotics, development of on farm test for a virus and study of epidemiology of a new species of bacteria. She works in collaboration with a team of epidemiologist, veterinarian and virologist on projects in Australia and overseas.