Professor Dr. Ahmet Kürşat Azkur is a veterinary virologist and immunologist whose career has focused on viral infections of animals, zoonotic diseases and the host immune response. Born in 1975, he received Veterinary Medicine degree from Ankara University in 1998 and completed his PhD in Veterinary Virology at Fırat University in 2002. During his doctoral training he worked in the Department of Virology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, gaining early experience in molecular virology and diagnostic methods. Following his PhD, Professor Azkur undertook a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Tennessee, Walter Life Sciences Building, Knoxville, USA (2002–2005), where he worked on experimental viral immunology and T-cell–mediated immune responses. After returning to Turkey and completing his military service as a laboratory officer at the Military Veterinary School and Training Center in Gemlik, he continued his academic career at Fırat University as a research assistant and later moved to Kırıkkale University. He was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kırıkkale University in 2007, promoted to Associate Professor in 2008 and to Full Professor in 2013. He has served as Head of the Department of Virology at Kırıkkale University since 2011. In 2012, he further broadened his international experience as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich, Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) in Davos with support from the CK-CARE fellowship, working on virus-induced immune mechanisms and allergy-related pathways. Professor Azkur’s research covers a broad spectrum of veterinary and comparative virology, including bovine viral diarrhoea virus, Schmallenberg virus, bovine ephemeral fever virus, coronaviruses and other emerging and re-emerging viral infections, as well as viral zoonoses such as monkeypox, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever and COVID-19. He has contributed to highly cited reviews on the immunopathology of COVID-19 and viral immunoinflammatory lesions, and has developed molecular and serological diagnostic methods, including RT-qPCR assays and ELISA optimisations, for important veterinary pathogens. He has supervised Master’s and PhD theses in veterinary microbiology and virology, with projects ranging from paediatric viral infections and bovine respiratory disease to the pathogenesis of Schmallenberg virus. Professor Azkur has authored or co-authored numerous publications in international peer-reviewed journals and has collaborated with leading research groups in Europe and the United States. His work integrates field epidemiology, molecular characterisation and immunology to improve the understanding, diagnosis and control of viral diseases at the animal–human interface.