Stephen Mutoloki is a Professor in the research group "Host-pathogen interactions in infection and immunity" at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. He is a veterinarian by training, with both Bachelor and Master of Veterinary Medicine degrees from University of Zambia, Lusaka Zambia and a PhD from the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NSVS), Oslo in 2007.
He has been involved in research on fish for more than 19 years, starting with injection-site side-effects following vaccination of salmonids with oil-based vaccines. After his PhD, he focussed more on host-pathogen interactions particularly in salmon, including infectious pancreasis necrosis and pancreas disease viruses. His areas of interest are mechanisms of pathogenesis and host responses including induction of protective immunity
During the last 7 years, he has been leading a research project on capacity building in East and Southern Africa (Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda) supported through NORAD's Norhed programme. The project was focused on training of young research scientists with areas of research including tilapia lake virus, infectious pancreatic necrosis and infectious hematopoietic necrosis viruses as well as streptococcus-like bacterial pathogens of tilapia. The group has secured more funding from Norad to continue with these activities for six more years and to expand collaborations with some institutions in West Africa.
Recently, Stephen started working with bacteriophages with a view of understanding their interactions with hosts. His primary focus are phages of bacteria causing skin ulcers in salmon.