Dr. Brooke Smith: Pig Immune System | Ep. 73

“If you want nutrition to be an important tool, you have to make sure that the other areas of your production are also up to snuff. So, are you maintaining a clean and comfortable environment? Are you sourcing healthy pigs to start? What are their pre-weaning environment, and what are they coming in with? Am I reducing the pathogen load there, so they're not bringing it with them into the barn? Are they stressed coming into the barn?” – Dr. Brooke SmithWhat you will learn:Biggest misconception on the immune system;Host immune response to PRRSV;Soybean meal and soy bioactive compounds;Soybean and total lysine requirement;Biggest learnings from Dr. Jim Lowe;Causes of mortality;Animal disease research;People with no agriculture background;Empathy in livestock production.Meet the guest: Dr. Brooke Smith is an Animal Scientist and she is currently a dual DVM/Ph.D. student through the Veterinary Medical Scholars Program at the University of Illinois. Her Ph.D. research is focused on the applications of dietary soy bioactives and their immunomodulatory actions on the immune response in disease-challenged swine.