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April 22, 2002 Volume 26, Issue 34 |
The pooled resources of the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine may help establish Mississippi State as a leader in imaging technologies for the agricultural and veterinary sciences.
MSU scientists already apply satellite-based remote sensing imagery to agriculture. However, Scott Willard and Peter Ryan, MAFES animal scientists, want a much closer, earthbound view of the challenges facing the animal food production industry.
"We'd like to take microscopy and other imaging systems and apply them to areas in large animal agriculture-for example, animal health, food safety and pathogenesis (of microbes found in food animals)," Willard said.
Together with CVM researchers Hart Bailey and Mark Lawrence, Willard and Ryan are working to establish a core laboratory facility equipped with current imaging technologies that will help them do just that.
The foundation for an imaging facility has been laid with existing ultrasound machines and with new biophotonics, fluorescence microscopy and infrared thermal imaging equipment. Much of this equipment was obtained as part of a current neuroscience collaboration among Willard, Ryan and CVM researchers Jan Chambers and Russell Carr, which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Willard, Ryan, Bailey and Lawrence plan to extend the application of this technology further to tackle questions in food animals.
To test this possibility, the team will initially use catfish as a model organism.