Veterinary infectious disease specialist receives professorship

Anthony Barbet, Ph.D., an infectious disease specialist at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine, has received a UF Research Foundation professorship.

The professorships are awarded through the university's Division of Sponsored Research to tenured faculty members campuswide for distinguished research and scholarship. The honor includes a $5,000 salary increase each year for three years and a one-time $3,000 award for research support.

Barbet, a professor in the UF veterinary college's department of infectious diseases and pathology, specializes in tick-borne rickettsial diseases, a growing threat to human health. Such diseases occur worldwide, but are most common in temperate and subtropical regions. Barbet and his colleagues at the UF veterinary college have long studied the animal variations of many of these diseases, specifically anaplasmosis and ehrlichiosis.

While perhaps best known for their decades of research into heartwater, a devastating disease that affects cattle and other livestock, UF's team also has significantly contributed to the understanding of other rickettsial organisms in the same family. Barbet is currently focusing on understanding why these diseases are now spreading from animals to humans and how they persist in the environment. The research also involves developing new molecular approaches that may be applied to pinpoint and control both human and animal infections.

Barbet has been a member of UF's veterinary college faculty since 1986.