Faculty and Staff

M. Catherine Scott

Research Associate

Email: mcscott@utk.edu

Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cathy Scott is currently a Research Associate in The Center for Wildlife Health in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Bethany College, West Virginia.  She then interned with the USEPA in Cincinnati, where she collected and identified aquatic insects for the Estuarine Monitoring and Assessment Program.  Cathy went back to school and received her Masters degree in Plant Science with an emphasis in molecular biology on the Agriculture Campus of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.  She spent several years in Cincinnati at the Children’s Hospital and the University Medical Center studying cellular signal transduction using a wide variety of molecular techniques in vivo and vitro disease models.  She returned to Knoxville for a job at the UTK’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology, where she worked on developing a bioluminescent phage based system for monitoring bacterial pathogens in the environment.  She was enticed to change her position to the Agriculture campus and has been happily researching mycobacteria since 2002.

Cathy’s research in the lab of Dr. CA Speer is focused on developing detection methods for Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis or Johne’s disease, an insidious and often fatal disease of wild and domestic ruminants.  Using a variety of techniques including molecular biology, proteomics, microbiology, biochemistry, molecular structure and immunology, the lab has successfully researched, developed and obtained two patents for diagnostic tests for Johne’s disease.   The lab’s current and future research is focused on making the patented tests more user-friendly, identifying the structure of the antigens and isolating and testing antigens for possible vaccines.

Cathy is a guest lecturer for courses in the Wildlife Health curriculum, teaching classes on diagnostic techniques and bacterial pathogens.  She also trains graduate students of the Speer lab and other students in various molecular techniques.

Cathy resides in South Knoxville with her husband Dan and two dogs.  Among the many activities she enjoys are horticulture, trail blazing, brewing mead, dancing, batiking, sewing and cookin’ tasty vittles.