From infectious disease and food safety to environmental monitoring and biosecurity — the One Health Centre works across five interconnected areas where integrated science makes the greatest difference.
The work of the One Health Centre is organized around five research pillars. They are not five separate programmes — they are five dimensions of the same challenge, each connected to the others, and each requiring the same integrated thinking that defines the One Health approach.
Across all five areas, the Centre draws on cutting-edge technologies: AI-based predictive modelling, digital epidemiology, advanced field diagnostics, and extracellular vesicle (EV) research — a rapidly growing field exploring how naturally occurring biological nanoparticles can be used for non-invasive diagnostics, new therapeutics, and vaccine development.
- Zoonotic & Infectious Disease Research
Most emerging infectious diseases begin in animals before reaching humans. Understanding how and why pathogens cross species boundaries — and developing better tools to detect and stop them early — is at the heart of this pillar. It builds on EMÜ's established strengths in host-pathogen interaction research and EV-based innovations.
- Food & Feed Safety and Security
Safe, reliable food systems depend on healthy animals, healthy plants, and healthy ecosystems. This pillar addresses biological threats, contamination risks, and supply chain vulnerabilities across the full chain from farm to fork — including the often-overlooked role of plant health in food and feed security.
- Environmental Health & Biothreat Surveillance
Climate change, pollution, habitat disruption, and ecological imbalance are reshaping where pathogens emerge and how they spread. This pillar focuses on understanding these drivers and building real-time monitoring capabilities — using remote sensing, bioinformatics, and molecular detection tools to catch threats early, before they escalate.
- CBRN Preparedness
Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats — whether naturally occurring or deliberately caused — require integrated prevention and response systems. This pillar strengthens surveillance, early warning, and coordinated institutional capacity, generating preparedness benefits that extend from everyday disease outbreaks to the most complex biosecurity scenarios.
- Cross-Border & Societal Resilience
How communities prepare for and respond to biological threats is shaped by culture, behaviour, trust, and social dynamics — not just science. This pillar integrates sociology, anthropology, and social psychology to understand what makes populations more or less resilient, how climate change and urbanisation affect disease patterns, and how cross-border cooperation can be made more effective in practice.
The Centre delivers its work through three core activities: Research & Innovation, Education & Training, and Partnership & Impact — open to researchers, students, policy-makers, and industry partners who share a commitment to integrated, evidence-based approaches to health and resilience.