Invited Speakers

Brian Aldridge University of Illinois

Brian Aldridge, BVSc, MS, PhD, Dip ACVIM (Food Animal), MRCVS
Dr Brian Aldridge is currently a Clinical and Health Innovation Professor at the University of Illinois with a joint appointment between the College of Veterinary Medicine and Carle Illinois College of Medicine. He holds affiliate positions at the Institute of Genomic Biology, the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, and the Center for Digital Agriculture. His scholarly efforts focus on animal health defense in young and growing animals with a particular interest in mucosal immunology, respiratory and gastrointestinal health, the early detection of health failure, and transcribing clinical data into intelligence that informs effective management decision making. Dr. Aldridge has assisted in the development and implementation of high impact veterinary and medical educational programs around the world and has helped establish a series of online Continuing Education and Graduate learning programs at the iLearning Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Presentation Title: A Systems-based Approach to Immunity and Health Resilience in Livestock

University of Bern

Rupert Bruckmaier is professor and head of Veterinary Physiology at the Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Switzerland. He has been working in various areas of endocrinology and physiology in lactating ruminants. The research of his group includes studies on regulatory mechanisms during the transition from gestation to lactation including colostrogenesis and formation of the blood-milk barrier. He also studied metabolic disturbances caused by nutrient and energy deficiency and their impact on the immune system as well as the endocrine regulation of milk ejection in different milking systems. Rupert Bruckmaier organized a number of conferences including the ICPD 2019 in Bern.

Presentation Title: Disturbed Milk Ejection at Machine Milking and the Issues Related to Oxytocin Injections in Dairy Cows

Mariangela Caroprese University of Foggia

Mariangela Caroprese, born on January 27th 1975, obtained a PhD in “Sustainable Agricultural Ecosystems” focusing on welfare assessment and the behavioral and immunological implications of stress in lambs. In 2005 she was employed as Assistant Professor and in 2015 as Associate Professor in Animal Science at the University of Foggia. In 2015 she became Head of the MSc in Agricultural Science, Safe Department, Unifg. In 2019 she was appointed Vice-Chancellor of University of Foggia for Placement. Main research activities focus on the assessment of dairy ruminant welfare and their immune state. Citation overview in SCOPUS: Cited Documents: 118; h-index: 26; Total citations: 1992.

Presentation Title: Heat Stress Impact on Immune Responses of Diary Ruminants

Scott Dee Pipestone Veterinary Services

Scott Dee earned a DVM, MS, and PhD from the University of Minnesota, is board-certified in veterinary microbiology, and past President of the AASV. After 12 years in both swine practice and academia, Scott joined Pipestone Veterinary Services as Director of Applied Research. He has been awarded > 12 M in research funding and published 172 peer reviewed papers, including the initial publications on the proof of concept of PEDV transmission in feed and the transboundary survival of ASFV in feed. He received the AASV Practitioner of the Year and Howard Dunne Memorial awards, the Leman Science in Practice award, a Warrior Chip from the FBI, and is a Master of the US Pork Industry. In 2022, he guest-edited a Special Issue on Feed Risk in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases and was awarded the Distinguished Service to the US Pork Industry Award from the National Pork Board.

Presentation Title: Next Generation Biosecurity for Animal Agriculture: The Swine Industry Model

Steve Dow Colorado State University

Steve Dow is the director of the Center for Immune and Regenerative Medicine at CSU. He is also the associate department head for graduate studies in the Department of Clinical Sciences. Dow’s research focuses on treatments for diseases including chronic organ failure and chronic bacterial infections. Dow received his B.A. from the University of Virginia and his D.V.M. from the University of Georgia. He completed a residency in the Department of Clinical Sciences at CSU and is board-certified in small animal internal medicine. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative pathology from the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology at CSU, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in T cell biology and tumor immunology at National Jewish Hospital in Denver.

Presentation Title: Immune Modulation by Antimicrobials and Innate Immune Agonists in Bovine Respiratory Disease Management

Alison Forhead University of Cambridge

Dr. Alison Forhead is a lecturer in physiology at the University of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes University, UK. She graduated with a BSc in Physiology and PhD in Veterinary Clinical Science from the University of Liverpool. Her research interests focus on understanding how endocrine systems develop in the fetus, and how hormones regulate fetal growth and development with consequences for health before and after birth. These studies use a range of experimental models, including large domestic animals.

Presentation Title: Stress before birth: role of glucocorticoids in developmental programming

Jonathan Huxley Massey University

Jon Huxley was raised on the family dairy farm in North Wales and graduated form the Royal Veterinary College, London. He has held academic positions at Bristol Veterinary School and spent over a decade as a foundation staff member at Nottingham University's new School. Jon is a research clinician specializing in the endemic diseases of dairy cows, particularly the treatment and prevention of lameness. He is a UK and European diplomat in cattle health and has been named on over $10 million of research funding. Jon Huxley BVetMed, DCHP, zDip.ECBHM, PhD, SFHEA, FRCVS Head of the School of Veterinary Science and Professor of Dairy Cow Health School of Veterinary Science, Massey University, New Zealand

Presentation Title: The vicious cycle of claw horn disease, causes and interventions

Nicole Kemper

Nicole Kemper, Professor, is director of the Institute for Animal Hygiene, Animal Welfare and Farm Animal Behavior at the Veterinary University of Hanover. She achieved her license to practice as veterinarian in 2001 in Leipzig. For the following years, she obtained her doctoral degree and worked at the University of Kiel, involved in many projects concerning animal health and hygiene. She was announced as Professor of Hygiene and Reproduction Physiology of Farm Animals at Halle University, in 2010. In 2013, she was appointed to her current position. Nicole is an internationally recognized expert in farm animal hygiene, behaviour and welfare, with around 180 scientific in international peer reviewed journals.

Presentation Title: Animal Health, Welfare and Environment - Complex Interactions with Room for Optimization

Michael Kogut USDA Agricultural Research Service

Dr. Kogut is a Research Microbiologist and Lead Scientist at the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, TX. Dr. Kogut has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 11 book chapters, and has received 5 patents. Dr. Kogut’s research has concentrated on the development of cost-effective immunological interventions to improve gut health by studying the role of the microbiota in immunity to infection; the role of dietary metabolites in promoting immune regulation and immune responses to pathogens; characterizing novel molecular targets that mediate the actions of dietary compounds in inflammation and immunity; and understanding the integration of central metabolic pathways and nutrient sensing with antimicrobial immunity.
Presentation Title: Understanding the Diet-Microbiota-Immunometabolic Axis in Gut Health

Dolf Kümmerlen University of Zurich

Dolf Kümmerlen graduated as a Veterinarian from Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, Germany in 2001. In the following years he worked as a scientist at the Clinic for Swine at the LMU Munich and at the Clinic for Swine at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He also worked several years as a practitioner in his large animal practice and for the Pig Health Service Switzerland. Since 2014, Dolf is senior lecturer at the Division of Swine Medicine at the University of Zurich, Switzerland with a focus on antimicrobial resistance and the development of monitoring programs for antimicrobial usage.

Presentation Title: Pathways to prudent antibiotic use - Tools and challenges

Hyun Soon Lillehoj USDA Agricultural Research Service

Dr. Lillehoj is a senior scientist at the Agricultural Research Service, USDA and works in the immunology and genomics fields in poultry. Dr. Lillehoj received her Ph.D. in Immunology from Wayne State University, School of Medicine and she was a staff fellow in the Laboratory of Immunology, NIAID, NIH. She joined ARS in 1984. Her research has focused on the avian immune system and its response to intestinal infections, coccidiosis and necrotic enteritis. Her research has led to the development of safe and effective antibiotic-free approaches to control these two economically-important poultry diseases. Among her most important accomplishments are the development and commercialization of novel diagnostic and therapeutic products for avian immunology, and several antibiotic alternatives. Her research has resulted in more than 490 original papers, 18 patents and 105 commercial licensing agreements. Her accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, most notably American Service Medal for Career Achievement Award (Sammies America Medal) which is the highest award given to federal government workers. Dr. Lillehoj was inducted into the ARS Hall of Fame in 2014, AAAP Hall of Honor in 2021, and received 2015 Presidential Rank Award.

Presentation Title: Novel Antibiotic Alternative Approaches to Control Coccidiosis and Necrotic Enteritis

Joan Lunney USDA Agricultural Research Service

Dr. Joan Lunney is a Supervisory Research Scientist working at the USDA ARS Beltsville MD. She co leads US Swine Immune Toolkit efforts aimed at developing new monoclonal antibodies and immune assays for assessment of pig health and vaccine responses and for use in the bio medical models of human health and disease. Dr. Lunney designed the US PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome) Host Genomics Consortium which assesses the role of genetics in determining pig resistance and susceptibility to PRRS virus infection, pathology, and associated growth effects. In collaboration with Canadian scientists, she has probed mechanisms controlling fetal resistance to congenital PRRS virus infection.

Presentation Title: Use of Genomics and Immunology to Help Producers Control Viral Diseases in Pigs

Sabine Mann Cornell University

Sabine Mann is an Assistant Professor of Ambulatory Medicine at Cornell University. She received her DVM degree from Hannover, Germany, her veterinary doctorate from LMU Munich, Germany, and her PhD from Cornell University in transition cow nutrition and physiology and epidemiology. Her current research focuses on the intersection of metabolism, nutrition, and immunology. She is particularly interested in nutritional strategies and interventions to improve host resilience in newborn calves and postpartum cows.

Presentation Title: Early Postpartum Hyperketonemia - A Sign of High Production or Reason to Worry?

Tomas Norton KU Leuven

Tomas Norton is a tenure track assistant professor in Precision Livestock Farming (PLF). He is based in the Division of Animal and Human and Health Engineering (group of M3-BIORES) at the KU Leuven. He holds a PhD in Biosystems Engineering from University College Dublin (Ireland). His current research focus is on PLF applications, focusing on modelling and monitoring of animal responses to their environment. He is PI and co-PI on collaborative National and International projects funded by the Belgium government, H2020 and USA. He is author of 81 SCI publications, 53 conference proceedings, 10 book chapters and co-editor of one book. He has given over 20 keynotes/invited presentations on his research. Currently he is co-coordinator of courses on Measuring, Modelling and Managing Bio-responses and Sustainable PLF at the KU Leuven. Since 2018 he is Chair of Section 2 of International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR). He also acts as Associate Editor of the Elsevier journal Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. He is a series editor for the upcoming Springer Nature Book Series: Smart Animal Production and Springer Nature Encyclopedia of Smart Agricultural Technologies.

Presentation Title: Precision Livestock Farming: a misnomer or the silver bullet?

Guilherme J M Rosa University of Wisconsin-Madison

Guilherme Rosa (www.gjmrosa.org) is a Professor of data science and quantitative genetics at the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Guilherme has BS and MS degrees in Animal Sciences and PhD in Biostatistics, and he has held academic positions at Sao Paulo State University – Brazil, and Michigan State University, and spent a sabbatical period at the Technical University of Munich – Germany. His research program is focused on the development and application of statistical and computational tools for the analysis of livestock data, including beef and dairy cattle, swine, poultry among others. Examples of applications include the analysis of farm-level operational data for optimization of management practices, high-throughput phenotyping techniques for real-time monitoring of individual animals and disease surveillance, as well as quantitative genetics/genomics and breeding.

Presentation Title: Leveraging Big Data Analytics to Improve Disease Surveillance and Welfare in Livestock

Bob Rowland University of Illinois

Research interests in the Rowland lab center on addressing fundamental problems in the detection and control of infectious pig diseases caused by emerging and foreign animal diseases, including porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), porcine circovirus (PCV), coronaviruses, and African swine fever virus (ASFV). Since 2008, the Rowland lab has been actively involved in understanding the role of host genetics in the response of pigs to infection, along with the application of genetic modification techniques for conferring disease resistance. Rowland is actively involved in the training of graduate students. He has authored/coauthored more than 150 refereed publications on animal health.

Presentation Title: Genetic modification of pigs for disease resistance: Past, present, and future

Carl Schmidt
University of Delaware

Dr. Schmidt’s research interests are centered on several aspects of herpes viruses, which are responsible for both substantial human suffering and economic loss. Most members of this class of virus can cause either a lytic or latent infection in host cells. A lytic infection results in death of the host cell, while in a latent infection, the herpes virus genome is maintained within the cell in an intact form. Latently infected cells can be stimulated to reactivate the virus by a variety of means and reactivation yields a release of virus particles. In some cases, latent infection also appears to be responsible for transformation of the host cell to a cancer cell.

Dr. Schmidt’s laboratory works on Marek’s disease virus (MDV), a herpes virus that causes T-cell Lymphomas in chickens. Current research interests focus on defining the cellular pathways and compartments used by MDV to achieve either a lytic or latent infection. A variety of techniques are being used to pursue these goals including cell culture, confocal fluorescence microscopy, recombinant DNA and DNA sequencing.

Presentation Title: Heat Stress Impact on Health and Production in Broiler Chickens

Andrew Wargo
Virginia Institute of Marine Science,
William & Mary

Andrew Wargo is an Associate Professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary. His research is focused on harnessing infectious disease ecology and evolution to improve pathogen management. Much of his work has been centered on virus and bacterial pathogens in salmonid fishes, such as infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) and flavobacterium psychrophilum. Specific research topics include virulence evolution, pathogen emergence, transmission, co-infection, vaccine efficacy evaluation, selective breeding, pollution impacts disease, biostatistics, and disease modeling. Andrew obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, studying transmission and drug resistance in malaria parasites. He then conducted a postdoc at the University of Washington and USGS Western Fisheries Center, studying viral fitness and virulence evolution. He addresses foundational topics with broad relevance to agriculture, conservation, and human health.

Presentation Title: Why Do Vaccines Fail?