In January, the Centre for Animal Research and Teaching welcomed its new Operations and Training Manager, Dr César Jayashi Flores.
Dr Flores has spent the past 12 years at Vaxxas in Brisbane, where he worked as Lead Scientist, leading a team conducting research and developing experiments and pre-clinical studies with various animal models.
In his new role, Dr Flores is looking forward to supporting all research projects at CART to ensure they run smoothly.
We caught up with Dr Flores to get to know him a little better and find out what he is loving about his new role at UNE so far.
Tell us about yourself and what you did before coming to UNE?
I was born in Peru and I came to Australia in 2006 to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne. I am a Veterinarian, with a Masters in Animal Health and a PhD in Veterinary Parasitology. Before joining CART, I worked at Vaxxas for 12 years. Vaxxas is a medical device company based in Brisbane that is developing a patch to deliver vaccines to humans transdermally. My role before joining UNE was as a Lead Scientist, leading a team conducting research and developing experiments and pre-clinical studies with various animal models.
Why did you choose to come to UNE?
We were looking to move to the countryside with my wife and two daughters and the position at UNE - CART sounded really exciting and very relevant to my work experience. The CART team gave me a terrific impression when I met them in person and I was extremely impressed with the CART facilities. Adding these things together made it easier for my family and I to make the decision for me to join UNE.
Tell me about your new position, and what you are most excited to achieve in the role?
The Operations and Training Manager plays a key role in facilitating research. We are a small team, but the activities that we cover are quite diverse. The support of animal research has a high degree of responsibility not only for the Animal Welfare point of view but also for the work health and safety of our team members and researchers. Possibly the one thing that I enjoy the most is that there is not a ‘typical day’, there is a wide range of things that we take care of that keep me engaged and excited. With my previous experience in running research studies, I am looking forward to supporting all research projects at CART to ensure they run smoothly.
Why are you passionate about animal welfare and the activities undertaken at CART?
Animals give us the privilege to advance human knowledge and develop science by using them in research. Because of this, we humans have a commitment to take care of their welfare. UNE has a solid animal ethics framework, in which all the animal activities/procedures at CART are regulated by an Animal Ethics Committee which follows the Australian code for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes. There has been a great shift towards improving animal welfare for all animal species if I compare it to the time when I was an undergraduate student. I have seen that shift during my career and my experience shows it does not only impact the animal health standards but also the quality of research results.
What has been your favourite part about moving to Armidale and working at UNE so far?
There are a few things, actually:
- It is easy to go to places around Armidale; commuting takes less than 10 minutes from where I live to UNE, which increases the time I can spend with my family
- The CART team has been nothing but helpful and supportive
- I have found a group of people to play soccer with which is one of my passions, and I have more time to practice/play music.
- The UNE Campus is impressive, the CART facilities even more. The UNE IT systems are excellent so far, so that is something that I did not consider much but was a pleasant finding.
What is one thing that people may not know about you?
Although I have never been to the USA, I worked under US jurisdiction for a bit over 4 months as a volunteer veterinarian in 2011 with my wife. We were members of the NGO World Vets team that worked in partnership with the US Navy in the “Continuing Promise 2011” mission providing free medical and surgical care to animals in need of treatment in various South America, Central American, and Caribbean countries. Our headquarters were in the USS Comfort, a US Navy Hospital ship, which was also our transportation to get to all of these countries.
An additional fun fact: My family name “Jayashi” is from Japanese origin as was my great grandfather who arrived in Peru in the early 1900s, so I am 1/8th Japanese and the rest mostly Peruvian. However, is incorrectly spelt, it should be “Hayashi”, but when my grandfather went to the Peruvian National Registry, it was written wrong on his National ID card. This makes my family name quite unique, and I am almost 100% sure that any Jayashi from Peru would be my family, so keep an eye out for them!
