A West Virginia University faculty member is bringing cutting-edge technology to the farm to answer key questions for dairy producers.
Joseph McFadden, an assistant professor of biochemistry in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design, received a $150,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to study insulin resistance in dairy cows.
“We are using an approach called mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to profile a multitude of metabolites in lean and overconditioned dairy cows transitioning from gestation to lactation,” McFadden said.
The goal is to identify metabolite profiles in blood, urine and tissues that are associated with the development of insulin resistance in overweight transition cows.
“This research could give dairy producers and veterinarians the ability to predict which cows will develop metabolic disease after calving,” McFadden explained. “In other words, we are studying the progression of insulin resistance and searching for biomarkers associated with the development of the disease.”
Another goal is to use the dairy cow as a model to better understand the relationship between weight gain and insulin resistance, as a potential means to better understand this relationship in other overweight animals—like humans.
After earning his Ph.D. in dairy science at Virginia Tech, McFadden completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Center for Metabolism and Obesity Research and the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“At Johns Hopkins I was introduced to mass spectrometry-based metabolomics as a means to better delineate how the brain processes dietary fat, and how these processes regulate food intake and body weight gain,” McFadden said.
In WVU’s Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences, he’s continuing to use this systems-biology approach to further define the mechanisms that govern insulin resistance in overweight dairy cows experiencing metabolic stress.
Comprehensively profiling metabolites using mass spectrometry is an innovative systems-biology technique to study metabolism in the animal sciences and will reveal new avenues of research.
“My goal is to contribute discoveries which can prevent metabolic stress in cows and improve animal health and performance,” he said. “Due to my interests in obesity research, my hope is to also continue cross-disciplinary research and study similar mechanisms in other obese animal models.”
“We are very glad to have Dr. McFadden on board,” said Matt Wilson, interim director of the Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences.
“His application of a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art approach to studying metabolism in dairy cattle has real potential to contribute to the need to nearly double food production in the next 50 years,” Wilson added. “It also has significant potential to identify emerging targets to better manage insulin resistance in the human population.”
A Ph.D. student in McFadden’s lab, Angela Santin, received a $15,000 grant from the USDA’s Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education unit to monitor dairy herds for related metabolic health issues using the same contemporary technology.
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dw/09/07/12
CONTACT: David Welsh, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design
304.293.2394, David.Welsh@mail.wvu.edu
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