Professor Peter Walker is an independent consultant in animal biosecurity, specialising in aquatic animal health and emerging infectious diseases.He is a virologist with expertise in a wide range of diseases of humans, livestock and aquatic animals. He has worked extensively with governments, FAO, OIE and industry on improving aquatic biosecurity in Asia and Australia.He was formerly Chief Research Scientist, Head of Aquatic Animal Health and Head of Vector-borne Diseases at the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong. He was also Research Group Leader for Disease Emergence and Response at this highly secure (BSL3/4) national facility.He formerly served as Program Manager (Health) for the Cooperative Research Centre for Aquaculture and on the Executive Committee of the Cooperative Research Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases.He was also Director of the OIE Reference Centre on Yellow Head Disease, Member of the OIE ad hoc Committee on Crustacean Diseases and Member of the Australian Government's Gene Technology Technical Advisory Committee.He has served as a member of the Executive Committee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) and is currently Chair of the Rhabdovirus Study Group.He has published over 180 refereed research papers and book chapters and has served on the editorial boards on major scientific journals including Reviews in Aquaculture, Frontiers in Microbiology, Archives of Virology and Virus Genes. He has also served as Associate Editor of the Encyclopaedia of Virology.