Vetsuisse Faculty

Research

The Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern is engaged in research with the aim to advance veterinary medicine for the benefit of animals, humans, and the environment. Core thematic areas of research have been specified to promote collaboration within and beyond the faculty. These include Animal Health and Welfare, Infectious Diseases and One Health, and Sustainability and Biodiversity.

The faculty maintains a Faculty Clinical Research Platform (FCRP) to foster early-career clinician scientists and facilitate collaborative clinical research. It also hosts the Multidisciplinary Center for Infectious Diseases (MCID), a strategic center of the University of Bern, aimed at determining the origins of infectious disease risks, preparing for emerging diseases and managing these risks.

The faculty plays an active role in the use and further development of all of the university’s core facilities, notably the Experimental Animal Center (EAC), the Interfaculty Bioinformatics Unit (IBU), the Microscopy Imaging Center (MIC), the Next Generation Sequencing Platform (NGSP), and the Data Science Lab (DSL). This involvement enables the faculty to leverage state-of-the-art research infrastructure for veterinary and biomedical research, as well as contributing to its strategic advancement.

Featured Projects

Research Project

Tracking Tails – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Cultural and Environmental Factors in Canine Disease Transmission and Control

The project aims to generate context-specific insights into how human-influenced dog movement drives disease transmission, enabling researchers to develop locally adapted models that support effective and culturally acceptable control strategies.

Ayrin Piephoh, Silja Griss, Jolanda Paganoni, Salome Dürr

Research Project

Phages driving bacterial adaptation and antibiotic resistance

The research group PHAR-OH explores the biology of phage–bacteria interactions to understand how phages shape adaptation and antibiotic resistance in staphylococci across One Health, and leverages this knowledge to advance phage-based solutions for public health.

Elena Gómez-Sanz

Research Project

A closer look at a protein behind early Neurodegeneration

At Vetsuisse Faculty, the researchers investigate how NogoA affects the development of neurons linked to Parkinson’s disease. Their work may reveal mechanisms that enable early neuroprotective strategies for Parkinson’s disease and support targeted central nervous system therapies.

Meike Mevissen, Rouaa Ben Chaabene, Angélique Ducray, Michaela Waeber, Sara Alonso, Léa Walther

Research Project

Impact of oral NSAID use on sow puerperium

The incidence of postpartum disorders in sows is rising with prolonged farrowing. This study evaluates the effect of oral ketoprofen on the health of sows and their piglets during the lactational period.

Francesca Grech, Alexander Grahofer

News

Events

Annual Fair NRP79

The Ethics and Policy Lab Team attend the NRP79 3R Fair in Fribourg

On the 15th April 2026, the EPL team participated in the NRP79 3R Fair at Forum Fribourg, an exchange platform on 3R principles (Replace, Reduce, Refine) in animal research. The event gathered stakeholders from academia, public administration, industry, NGOs, and politics to explore current research through presentations, demonstrations, and discussions.

Research

Rearing conditions influence the immune system of brown trout

For the first time, researchers at the University of Bern have studied the immune system of brown trout cell by cell and compiled an overview of the gene activity in each cell. The study shows the diversity of the immune system of this ecologically important fish species, which is protected in Switzerland, and demonstrates that rearing conditions can leave measurable traces in the immune cells.

Media Release

Research

Domestic cats may hold the key to understanding breast cancer

An international research team with participation from Bern has conducted the world's first comprehensive genetic study of cancer in domestic cats. The study shows that some of the genetic changes in cat tumors closely resemble those found in human cancers. These parallels open up new perspectives for developing targeted cancer therapies, particularly for breast cancer.

press release

Research

Toxin-receptor interaction decoded

Researchers at the Institute of Animal Pathology, the Institute of Anatomy, and EPFL were able to identify the cellular receptor of the NetF toxin and visualize its binding at the molecular level.NetF is a pore-forming-toxin secreted by the bacterium Clostridium perfringens and thought to play a role in enteritis in dogs and horses. The results, published in Nature Communications, represent an important step toward new therapeutics for bacterial infections.

Research

For faster differentiation between BVDV and BDV antibodies

Katja Moser talks about her journey in developing a diagnostic test for bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) in the blog of the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI).

Read now!

Research

COLOSS Poster Prize for Michael Muturi

PhD student Michael Muturi was awarded the Student Poster Prize at the COLOSS Conference in Copenhagen for his poster “Small hive beetles (cf.) can infest natural stingless bee nests in Africa.”

Scherago International Student Travel Grants Award

Laura R. Voitl, PhD student in the Livestock Genetics team at the Institute of Genetics, was awarded the PAG 33 Travel Grant to present her work entitled "Assessing SNV and SV Callers using HiFi Long Read WGS to Find Causal Variants for Mendelian Traits in Goats" at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference.