North
Dakota State University Department of Animal and Range Sciences
Dairy Research
North
Dakota State University
Department
of Animal and Range Sciences
Dairy
Research
Current Projects
IV. RESEARCH ON-GOING AND PLANNED FOR NEXT YEAR:
A. IN PROGRESS:
a. Heifer development. Refinement of our compensatory growth regimen with focus on further enhancement of efficiency of heifer growth and udder development. A multi-university collaborative effort is being developed.
b. Immune system and transition heifer management. Examination of the relationship between compensatory growth and immune function during gestation and early lactation. Information from this work could lead to the development of a timely and useful nutritional strategy for transition cow management.
c. Increasing nutraceuticals (anti-cancer factors) in milk. Determination of the optimum direct dietary supplementation levels of certain oilseeds that result in a maximum increase in CLA content of milk fat without negatively affecting total milk yield.
B. PLANNED:
a. Lactation persistency. Establish a link between nutritionally-directed enhancement of lactation persistency and mammary cell growth and death. A better understanding of the control of cell number may lead to strategies for prolonging lactation, increasing peak yield, and reducing net loss of mammary cells, thereby improving production efficiency. We have begun the development of an in vitro stair-step model with which we can study compensatory growth on a molecular level.
b. Mammary differentiation and breast cancer. In addition to improving lactation performance, our compensatory nutrition regimen may offer opportunities in the development of a nutritional strategy for breast cancer prevention. We are continuing to explore possible compensatory nutrition models that may curtail the span of time between the onset of mammary development and fully differentiated mammary tissues (i.e., the critical mammary growth period sensitive to cancer induction).
c. Enhanced calf immunity and reduced mortality. Recent studies show that
dietary nucleotides enhance growth, immune function, and maturation of the small
intestine, suggesting that they may be a conditionally required nutrient. Human
infants fed nucleotide-supplemented formula had less diarrhea, possibly due
to enhanced resistance to intestinal pathogens (an immune response), better
maintenance of mucosal integrity, or both. Based on the outcome of our preliminary
work, a detailed experiment will be proposed.