Program
Final 2016 Program and Abstracts
Invited Speakers
Speaker: Peter Ferket
Title: Cultivating the Enteric Ecosystem to Resist Enteric Pathogens and Maintain Gut Health in Poultry
Speaker Biography:
Peter Ferket earned BS and MS degrees in animal and poultry science at the University of Guelph in 1981 and 1983, respectively, and a PhD degree in animal nutrition from Iowa State University in 1987. In 1988 Ferket joined the Department of Poultry Science at North Carolina State University, where he is responsible for extension education, research, and undergraduate and graduate teaching. He has devoted much of his extension and research efforts to nutritional factors that affect growth and health of meat poultry, especially turkeys. He is recognized for his work on perinatal nutrition and development, skeletal development and immune function, enteric health, pro-nutrient feed additives, nutritional factors that affect the yield and quality of meat, nutritional value of food industry coproducts, and nutrient management. His teaching activities focus on vitamin metabolism, mineral metabolism, poultry nutrition, feed mill management, ingredient quality control, and feed formulation. Ferket is a frequent speaker at animal and poultry conferences and has authored over 550 publications and 7 patents and invention disclosures.
Speaker: Barry Bradford
Title: Nutrition 2.0–Diet Components at the Gut/Microbe Interface
Speaker Biography:
Bradford is a professor of metabolic physiology in the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University. He completed his PhD at Michigan State University, where he studied mechanisms underlying nutrient-induced satiety. He currently oversees a diverse research program focused on interactions of inflammation and metabolism, signaling effects of nutrients, and novel approaches to formulation of dairy cattle rations. In addition, he teaches more than 180 students per year in animal nutrition and physiology courses. Through his research and education efforts, Bradford seeks to improve the sustainability of animal-derived foods primarily by improving the health and productivity of dairy cattle.
Speaker: Barbara Metzler-Zebeli
Title: Functional Properties of Dietary Complex Carbohydrates and Minerals as Modulators of Gut Microbiota and Digestive Physiology in Pigs
Speaker Biography:
Metzler is a senior scientist and lecturer at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria. She received her doctorate in pig nutrition at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and performed her postdoctoral work at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her current research program focuses on 2 main topics that are at the interface of nutrition and gut-microbial interactions in pigs, chickens, and ruminants. The first focus characterizes the association between functional dietary ingredients and gut homeostasis including microbial, physiological, transcriptomic, and digestive features as well as host metabolism, performance, and health. The second area of her research focuses on the gut microbial and physiological processes underlying feed efficiency in pigs and chickens. She is a cofounder of the interdisciplinary research cluster "Animal-Gut-Health," which fosters basic and applied research in the field of gut health and microbiome analysis at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.