dr. MN (Marc) Faber

My personal research interest lies in animal health and immunology, with specific focus on pathogen-host interactions and identifying mechanistic proteins involved in these interactions.

I graduated with a B.Sc. in Biology from the Ruprecht-Karl University of Heidelberg followed by a M.Sc. in Fishery science and Aquaculture from the Humboldt University of Berlin. My masters’ thesis focused Baltic cod liver pathology and pathogen load from chemical warfare agent dumpsites in the Baltic Sea.

I continued my research into fish diseases with my PhD at the Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre at the University of Aberdeen. During my PhD I was working on reverse vaccinology approaches to develop therapeutic treatments for Proliferative Kidney Disease in rainbow trout, identifying and testing novel DNA and recombinant protein vaccine candidates in farmed trout. During my project I started to develop 3D in-vitro cell culture models in fish, due to the challenges I encountered during field studies and the need to study pathogen-host interactions under controlled environments.

After my PhD I moved to Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh as a postdoctoral researcher.  My project involved developing 3D organoid cultures derived from adult stem-cells in cattle as an in-vitro platform for parasite-host interactions in ruminant nematodes. Over my time at MRI, I was involved in multiple organoid projects crossing different species and tissues, through combination of cell culture, live imaging microscopy and -omics approaches. My reverse vaccinology approaches have recently been focused on testing novel antigen screening platforms using AI-driven antigen prediction.

I joined the AFI team in January 2026 as assistant professor build up research and continue to develop in-vitro tools to research solutions for farmed fish health. I see in-vitro cell cultures as a powerful tool to help to improve our approaches to tackle disease control and therapeutic strategies, improve fish welfare and reduce the number of animals utilised in research.