Dillon Tartaglia
This semester, I have been involved in an extensive project looking at the causes behind heat stress in barrow pigs. Myself along side with Johana Mayorga, Dr. Lance Baumgard, and Dr. Joshua Selsby hypothesize that the negative cascade of events that occur during heat stress is due to muscle mitochondria dysfunction. With that being said, we proposed 2 questions: Is it true that mitochondria of the muscle is the starting point of heat stress, and what drugs can we implement to help solve this problem?
Our project consisted of 2 trials that lasted around a month each, and each trial tested a specific drug in attempts to suppress the negative effects of heat stress. Each trial had appropriate acclimation periods, thermo neutral periods as the drugs were introduced, and finally 2 groups of pigs (a control group and experimental group) were induced into heat stress for 24 hours before sacrifice.
Through the course of the semester, we have successfully ran these 2 trials, and have started the work into analyzing our data we received from our pigs. Data comes from a wide variety of things such as: daily vitals, periodic blood samples, tissue samples, and organ samples. All samples were collected in order to further understand what causes heat stress, and to see if the drugs we implemented have positive effects on these animals.
With that being said, our research will continue in order to conclusively say what effects, if any, our drugs had on our pigs, and hopefully we can find a solution to a problem that negatively effects the wellbeing of these animals, and the farmers that own them.
A special thanks to Dr. Baumgard's research team and Science With Practice to help facilitate learning through hands on experience, and providing me with this opportunity to learn more than I ever thought I could.
Duration: 04/29/2019
Principal Investigator(s): Joshya Selsby