This January 2022, Tong Wang joined Kreavet as R&D manager. Here is his story on why he made the move from Canada to Belgium and how he sees to further a career in parasitology.

I completed my PhD in veterinary parasitology at University of Bristol in 2015 under the promotorship of prof. Eric Morgan. Before joining Kreavet, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher with dr. Douglas Colwell and prof. John Gilleard in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and University of Calgary for 5 years. The above experience allows me to understand the importance of parasite control in grazing animals. Although these worms cause less clinical disease in sheep and cattle, they are still a cause of considerable production loss, which can be easily neglected by farmers and veterinarians. Fortunately, a tremendous amount of innovative research has been conducted into sustainable parasite control in the past decades. However, there is a lack of activities to translate research papers into field application.

As for me, after conducting applied multidisciplinary research in different academic institutions, now it’s time to translate the research outcomes into concrete tools to benefit the livestock industry. Belgium is one of the best places to achieve this goal given its advanced parasitology research and the well-established livestock communities. More importantly, the favorable climate and higher stocking rate of western Europe indicates the necessity of applying sustainable parasite control in such a region. I think the awareness of sustainable parasite control starts to grow among farmers as anthelmintic resistance is getting worse every day. I have worked with many British and Canadian farmers through planning and conducting field research. They have a strong willingness to understand and apply worm control effectively on their farms. But the execution did not go well, either due to the lack of guidance or poor interpretation of the diagnostic results. I strongly believe that one day in the future, we can develop the best user-friendly decision support system that benefits the livestock industry not only in Europe, but also the rest of the world.

17 January 2022

Tong Wang