About TfG
TfG are Dr. Ken Wildey and Prof. Nick Price. Between them Nick & Ken have almost 60 year’s experience in a range of scientific activities related to the environment and public health.
Ken’s specialties are at the sharp end of pest management and wildlife issues, whilst Nick has a wealth of experience at the more theoretical and research-based end of the business.
Ken spent 9 years as Head of Wildlife and Storage Biology Department, ADAS, Starcross. He was senior adviser in Devon and Cornwall on wildlife management, conservation, wildlife and pesticides, and public health/food storage pests, before becoming , Head of Infestation Risk Evaluation at DEFRA's Central Science Laboratory, (now the Food & Environment Research Agency) managing 35 research scientists working on food storage pests, public health pests and agricultural pests. Ken was appointed Director of the International Centre for Safe Commodity Storage, based at CSL’s headquarters near York.
Since leaving CSL to form TfG some of Ken’s activities include:
Acting as expert witness in crop and food spoilage cases
Scientific surveys
Contributor to the UK delegation for the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) on invertebrate contaminants in food.
Member of the UK British Standards Institute Cereals Committee.
Member of the IOBC steering group on biological control in stored product pests.
Court arbiter in UK on fly nuisances in dwelling houses, related to infestations in housed livestock units
After 6 years of academic research, Nick worked for 25 years at what became the Central Science Laboratory of DEFRA, (now the Food & Environment Research Agency).
During this time Nick gained experience and a publication record in the fields of insect biochemistry, physiology and endocrinology, as well as an increasing interest and involvement in molecular modelling, quantitative structure-activity relationships, (QSAR) and natural products.
He became Head of Pest Management Strategies Group, taking responsibility for management and scientific supervision of 70 scientists working on a wide range of research projects in the fields of novel pest management and natural products. These include: Natural product chemistry; Biological control, by predators, microorganisms, and natural products; Insect and mite biology and physiology; Behavioural ecology; Biochemical and molecular biology of pests; QSAR.
Some of Nick’s recent roles and responsibilities have been;
Information mining of scientific data for legal actions
Scientific Surveys
Visiting Professor of Applied Biology, University of Leeds
Honorary Fellow in Chemistry, University of York
Member of project CAESAR team, EU project on QSAR to predict toxicology
Project module leader on multi EU project of QSARs for the assessment of environmental risk of pesticides
Preparing documents for assessment under EU Cosmetic regulations
PhD external examiner; University of Newcastle
Evaluating QSAR Software
QSAR Training