Affiliation: Government of Western Australia, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD)

Cécile Dang is a Principal Research Scientist in the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and leader of the Fish Health Laboratory. Prior to this appointment, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory at The University of Queensland.

The focus of her research has been to better understand the interactions between the host, the pathogen, and the environment, especially the ones that are of significant importance for the industry. She also investigated the impact of various stressors on the susceptibility of the host to pathogens. During her research career, she has studied and worked across a wide range of disciplines in aquatic animal health including molecular biology, pathology, virology, bacteriology, next-generation sequencing, flow-cytometry, focusing principally on mollusks (abalone, pearl oysters, clams, oysters). She investigated diseases and syndromes affecting mollusks in France and Australia such as QX disease in the rock oyster Saccostrea glomerata, bonamiosis in flat oysters Ostrea angasi, POMS in Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas and pearl oysters Pinctada margaritifera, perkinsosis in various mollusk species, brown muscle diseases in the clam Ruditapes philippinarum, as well as bacterial diseases and helminthosis in various mollusk species. Her work has involved field surveys but also experimental challenges in controlled laboratory conditions. Since the beginning of her career, she has been involved in 21 national and international projects and was the principal investigator in 8 of them. She has published to date 28 peer-reviewed papers in high-ranking journals.