Sean Wattegedera

Sean is a principal research scientist and Chlamydia Research Group Lead at the Moredun Research Institute. He is a cellular immunologist with expertise in host-pathogen interactions of chlamydial infections in animals and their zoonotic impact.

Sean joined Moredun as a senior research assistant following his undergraduate Biological Sciences Degree at Lancaster University. His work involved the development of tools to study ruminant cytokine biology and apply this to the Chlamydia Research Programme. He has been involved in the assessment and commercialization of immunological reagents to investigate ruminant immunology. In 2014, he became a senior research scientist continuing to investigate disease pathogenesis and vaccine-induced immunity for a number of bacterial diseases including footrot and Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis.

In 2020 he completed his PhD in “Defining immune function and identifying correlates of protection against Chlamydia abortus in sheep”.

In 2024, he became a principal research scientist.

Sean has an interest in reproductive biology and expertise in design and the assessment of vaccines in small and large ruminants.

Sean currently undertakes a number of core (Scottish Government Strategic Research Programme 2022-2027) and externally-funded projects (EU Horizon 2020/ Innovate UK REPRODIVAC 2022-2027; BBSRC Responsive Mode Project 2023-2027; BBSRC Endemic Diseases Project 2023-2027) to assess chlamydial pathogenesis and develop novel vaccines for livestock disease syndromes (ovine enzootic abortion and bovine respiratory disease complex).