RIDE Seminar Series

May 8, 12–1 p.m., AnSci/Vetmed 125 and on Zoom

Noelle Noyes, DVM, PhD, “How does pooling impact the observed microbiome diversity and composition of fecal samples collected from piglets?”
Microbiome studies typically use samples that are collected, processed and analyzed at the level of the individual host. Livestock microbiome studies, however, often ask research questions that are more relevant to groups of individuals. In such a scenario, it may be appropriate to pool individual samples to create a group-level observation of the microbiome. However, the impact of pooling on microbiome measurements such as diversity and composition has not been fully explored. This talk will discuss results of a recent project investigating the impact of different pooling methods on the observed microbiome of feces obtained from piglets.

Steven Friedenberg, DVM, PhD, "Insights and challenges from a decade of studying autoimmune diseases in dogs"
This talk will discuss how we use dogs as a model for studying genetic diseases, along with findings from his recent work in Addison's disease and autoimmune hemolytic anemia and plans for future work in the area.

Agent-based modeling is a computational method that is widely used to understand complex systems. The use and ubiquity of agent-based models is especially growing in fields like population health science and epidemiology. Belsare will discuss how an agent-based modeling approach can be used to investigate disease dynamics in wildlife and/or synanthropic host populations. He will also discuss the use of simulation modeling to ‘test drive’ disease management interventions and determine their effectivity.