Program
Invited Speakers
Speaker: Jason W. Abernathy, PhD
Title: Toward an understanding of fish gut tolerance to alternative feeds—The Trout-Grains Project
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Abernathy is a research geneticist with the USDA-ARS located at the University of Idaho Fish Culture Experiment Station in Hagerman, Idaho. He received his doctorate from Auburn University in 2010 with a concentration in genomics and fish-pathogen interactions. He then served as a NIFA Research Fellow at Texas A&M University and the University of California, Davis, with research focused on gut-microbe interactions. His current research is aimed at determining mechanisms responsible for gastrointestinal distress in carnivorous fish when fed more sustainable plant-based diets. This work includes an assessment of physiological, transcriptomic, and proteomic features, as well as microbial diversity of the fish gut, utilizing genetically improved (plant-diet tolerant) rainbow trout from the ARS Trout-Grains selection program as a control.
Speaker: Shawn M.D. Bearson, PhD
Title: Salmonella in food animal production: Defining the need for antibiotic alternatives and exploring approaches for intervention
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Bearson is a Research Microbiologist at the USDA-ARS-National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, and is currently serving as the research leader for the Food Safety and Enteric Pathogens Research Unit. She received her doctorate in Basic Medical Sciences at the University of South Alabama and performed her post-doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research program focuses on 3 factors that influence Salmonella colonization and persistence in food animals: virulence mechanisms of Salmonella, the tactical response from the host, and interactions with the host microbiota residing within the gastrointestinal tract. Her current research efforts are characterizing the effects of antibiotics on MDR Salmonella and identifying antibiotic alternatives to decrease Salmonella on the farm, reduce antibiotic dependence, promote animal health, and provide the public with a safe food supply.
Speaker: Dr. Leluo Guan
Title: Understanding host-microbial interactions and their impact on gut development in newborn dairy calves
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Leluo Guan is Professor of Functional Genomics and Microbiology in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science at University of Alberta, Canada. She obtained her masters and doctorate in Pharmaceutical Science from Kyoto University, Japan. She became an assistant professor at University of Alberta in 2006. Dr. Guan has published more than 114 peer-reviewed articles to date and her research program focuses on 2 main topics. The first focus of her research is bovine functional genomics, which involves establishing a link of "omics" with economically important traits in livestock species using transcriptome and proteome profiling through high-throughput technologies. The second area of focus involves elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of in host-microbial interactions by studying the associations between bovine gut microbiome and feed efficiency, methane emission, and gut immunity development in beef or dairy cattle using metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, or functional genomics approaches.
Speaker: Glenn Zhang, PhD
Title: Dietary modulation of intestinal epithelial defense in chickens
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Zhang is currently Professor of Molecular Immunology in the Department of Animal Science at Oklahoma State University. He received his doctorate from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University before a postdoctoral training in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Immunobiology at Yale University Medical School. His research has been focused on the regulation of innate immunity with the long-term goal of developing effective strategies to achieve optimal animal health and performance without relying on antibiotics. His research has been supported by the USDA and NIH and is currently being funded by the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology to commercialize a group of host defense peptide-inducing dietary compounds as novel alternatives to antibiotics for poultry use.