NCERA057: Swine Reproductive Physiology
Statement of Issues and Justification
Animal agriculture is critical to the vitality, stability, sustainability and overall success of the US economy. Remaining competitive in a global economy requires continued improvement of animal production systems. Key to this improvement is enhancing reproductive efficiency. Reproduction has been found to be the single most important factor leading to profitability in animal agriculture. Numerous advances pioneered or researched by members of NCERA57 or its predecessor, NCR57, have resulted in increases in reproductive efficiency within the pork industry. Some of these advances have included, increased use of artificial insemination, reduced age at puberty, increased litter sizes, and improvement of producers understanding of environmental and genetic effects on reproduction. There still remains many areas in which research conducted by NCERA57 members can increase reproductive efficiency and contribute to increased profitability of pork production. In addition, communication of this research to producers and college students remains a goal of the committee. The goals of NCERA57 are therefore consistent with the priorities of NCRA to develop improved animal production systems that are competitive, profitable and environmentally sound.New and growing technologies in functional genomics, proteomics, glycomics and bioinformatics are increasingly important in understanding biological processes. Application of these technologies to reproductive processes have and will continue to contribute to rapid improvements in understanding, and novel approaches to control, the reproductive processes in swine. It is becoming increasingly apparent that not only is it important to understand the genes, gene products, and protein function but also the carbohydrate contribution to the cell surface and even the lipids within the membranes. Members of NCERA57 have been involved in this type of research and will continue in the future as this is one of the group's priority research objectives and is tied to the NCRA priority research objective for Genetic Resources Development and Manipulation.
The NCERA57 committee is made up of a broad group of researcher, extension scientists and university teachers. Most members have appointments in more than one of these areas. NCERA57 and it predecessor, NCR57, have had major impacts on understanding and controlling reproductive processes not only in swine (the major emphasis) but also in other species. The annual meeting provides a unique forum for scientific exchange, critique, new and continuing collaboration, and discussion of new theories and alternative interpretations of experimental results. The forum is increasingly important as increased research costs make it essential to develop collaboration, share reagents, techniques and have open scientific discussions, before undertaking expensive research.
In addition to the research conducted by NCERA57 members, the committee has been very successful in communicating research to producers, students and the general public. The committee holds a biennial symposium on current reproductive concerns in the swine industry. These have been held in 2004, 2006 and 2008. The last two had in excess of 60 industry participants in addition to the committee. Numerous undergraduate teaching resources have been developed by members based not only on research related to the science but also success in student learning. Lastly, a website was developed, http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/jjp1/ncera57/index.html, to provide open access to symposium presentations and technical information of interest for educators and producers.
The NCERA57 committee has continued to adapt to changing times, increasing collaboration among its diverse members, providing forums for discussion of research and proposed research projects, forums for industry representatives on research and how it could be utilized in production settings, and development of novel teaching approaches. NCERA57 has been a model of success and will continue this tradition in the future.
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