David Lees

David Lees is Senior Food Safety Advisor in the Food Safety group at Cefas Weymouth laboratory, UK. He has >30 y experience in human health microbiology including disease diagnosis and monitoring, virological research, statutory related programmes and reference laboratory activities. The Food Safety group covers activities associated with; European Regulations on food safety – classification of bivalve mollusc harvesting areas, approval of shellfish purification plants; sanitary surveys; advice on sewage discharges; and associated applied research on faecal pollution of the marine environment, and enteric viruses impacting seafood. He advises UK Government and European Commission on issues related to bivalve mollusc safety. Cefas Weymouth is the designated UK National (NRL) and EU Reference Laboratory (EURL) for bacterial and viral contamination of bivalve molluscs. David is Director of the EURL. He has been instrumental in research and monitoring developments on norovirus in bivalve shellfish, authoring a number of key publications, chairing method standardisation activities at the European level, and currently advising the EU Commission on possible regulatory standards.