Program
Final Program and Abstracts
Basic Program
Sunday, November 4: Registration Open: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Monday, November 5: Sessions begin at 8:00am with breakfast at 7:00am. Lunch provided with a reception to follow sessions.
Tuesday, November 6: Sessions begin at 8:00am with breakfast at 7:00am. Lunch provided with a reception to follow sessions.
Wednesday, November 7: Session begins at 8:00am with breakfast at 7:00am. The Symposium will conclude around 12:00pm.
Invited Speakers
Speaker: Ehsan Khafipour
Title: Microbial ecology of the gastrointestinal tract, mammary glands and the reproductive tract of dairy cattle
Speaker Biography:
Ehsan Khafipour is an associate professor of microbiology in the Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, and in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, College of Medicine, University of Manitoba. He is also the lead scientist of the Microbiome Laboratory and a research scientist at the Children Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM) and Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine (CCARM). Khafipour’s laboratory uses cutting-edge sequencing technologies, combined with bioinformatics and statistical approaches, to link the composition, function, and dynamics of microbiomes in the gut, vaginal tract, and mammary system with individuals’ diet, lifestyle factors, and health/disease status. His goal is to move from the current one-size-fits-all recommendations for prevention and treatment of metabolic diseases in food-producing animals toward personalized and precision nutrition and veterinary medicine.
Speaker: Mark Lyte
Title: Microbial endocrinology as an evolutionary-based language between host and microbiota influencing gut health
Speaker Biography:
Mark Lyte is a full professor with board certification in clinical laboratory medicine in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University. Lyte is also the W.E. Lloyd Endowed Chair in Toxicology. He obtained his graduate degrees from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in biophysics and cellular immunology and completed two postdoctoral fellowships, the first in immunotoxicology at the Medical College of Virginia and the second in clinical immunopathology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Work from Lyte’s laboratory has provided initial and continuing results demonstrating the ability of microorganisms to produce neurochemicals that are capable of influencing host health, behavior, and disease pathogenesis. This has resulted in the creation of a new translational scientific discipline uniting the fields of neurobiology and microbiology that has been termed microbial endocrinology. Lyte has been awarded the Susman Award for Surgical Infectious Disease and was named a finalist for the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award.
Speaker: Megan Niederwerder
Title: Role of the gut microbiome on outcome following viral respiratory infections in nursery pigs
Speaker Biography:
Megan Niederwerder is an assistant professor at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine in the Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology. She received her DVM from Kansas State University. After three years as a practicing veterinarian, Niederwerder returned to Kansas State, where she completed her PhD thesis on viral diseases of swine. Niederwerder’s research is focused on understanding how the gastrointestinal microbiome plays a role in the outcome of pigs infected with two of the most significant pathogens affecting swine worldwide, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus and porcine circovirus type 2. She has conducted research on identifying microbiome characteristics beneficial for growth and clinical outcome during polymicrobial respiratory disease as well as investigating the use of microbiome modulation as an alternative tool to improve the response of pigs to viral infections. She was selected as a finalist for the 2016 American Veterinary Medical Association Young Investigator Award for her microbiome research. Niederwerder serves as the course coordinator and instructor of veterinary virology to second-year veterinary professional students.
Speaker: Elizabeth Santin
Title: I see inside: Precisely defining gut health
Speaker Biography:
Since 2004, Elizabeth Santin has been associate professor of poultry pathology at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba, Brazil, where she has been actively engaged in research in the fields of gastrointestinal health and microbiology applied to poultry production. At UFPR she has also held office as graduate program second coordinator (veterinary science, 2014–2016), head of the Department of Veterinary Medicine (2006–2010 and 2016–2018), and coordinator of the poultry pathology laboratory (2004–present). Santin is DMV by University Federal of Santa Maria, Brazil (1997), with a Doctor of Science degree in veterinary medicine (State University of Sao Paulo–Jaboticabal with a trainee period at University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; 2000–2003). She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California–Davis in immunology and nutrition (2013). Her scientific research has been published in important journals in the poultry science field, and she is a consultant for many poultry companies in Latin America in programs to control disease through the management of production data. She is on the board of directors of the Poultry Science Association (2016–2019).