Peter Surai, after graduating from Kharkov State University in the Ukraine, went on to the Ukraine poultry Research Institute. Following two years developing various antioxidant-related techniques at an analytical feed analysis laboratory, he later he became head of the Department of Reproduction and later Department of Physiology, Biochemistry and nutrition (Ukraine) where he was responsible for poultry nutrition throughout the country.

In 1994 he moved to Scotland where he is currently a Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at the Avian Science Research Centre of the Scottish Agricultural College.

His main interest has been concerned with aspects of antioxidant metabolism with a specific emphasis to selenium in relation to animal and human nutrition and reproduction, and has more that 350 research publications devoted to this subject, including 75 papers in peer-reviewed journals. In 1999 he received the prestigious John Logie Baird Award for Innovation for the development of "super-eggs" and in 2000, The World's poultry Science Association Award, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the development of the poultry industry. For the last decade he has lectured in over 40 countries on various antioxidant-related topics.