The Quality Milk Alliance is a five-year, USDA-funded initiative to cut antibiotic use in dairy cattle by half and for mastitis by one third. Our researchers focus on immunity enhancement, antibiotic use, cultural training, metabolic disease prevention and management, and more.
Lorraine Sordillo, MS, PhD, is the Meadow Brook Chair in Farm Animal Health and Wellbeing. She investigates mechanisms of host inflammatory response during disease pathogenesis; the role of oxidative stress and selenium deficiency on vascular homeostasis and the control of intracellular redox balance; mechanisms through which oxidant stress contributes to aberrant host inflammatory pathways and endothelial cell dysfunction in diseases with strong inflammatory components, such as atherosclerosis, colitis, and mastitis; and the role of oxidant stress in mastitis, development of biomarkers, and methods of prevention and treatments.
Ron Erskine, DVM, MS, PhD, researches bovine mastitis, bovine leukemia virus, bovine therapeutics, and the application of new technologies on dairy farms related to animal health.
Andres Contreras, DVM, PhD, is studying adipose tissue biology with special emphasis on the effects of lipolysis and other fat tissue adaptation mechanisms associated with negative energy balance and the onset of lactation on host immunity and disease susceptibility, the development and adequate implementation of health solutions, and new technologies and applications that improve periparturient dairy cow health while increasing farmers' profitability.