Bovine mastitis, an inflammation of the mammary gland in response to invading mastitis pathogens causing intramammary infection, is an extremely relevant and prevalent disease for the dairy industry. It results in major economic losses, important animal welfare issues, food waste and massive antibiotic use. Non-antibiotic prevention and control through clever use of non-aureus staphylococci (NAS) at drying off, building further on the intriguing insights from a previous, IOF-funded StarTT project will be studied. Genotyping will be combined with phenotypic testing to select a new lead NAS isolate that will be tested by the same experienced team in a new, large-scale clinical trial.