Lance Baumgard, Norman L. Jacobson Endowed Professor in Dairy Nutrition in the Department of Animal Science at Iowa State University, was recently awarded the 2020 Journal of Dairy Science Highly Cited Award from the American Dairy Science Association.
“This is such a great award for Lance Baumgard and his research team. Such impact and relevance in the dairy industry by this leader,” said Dan Thomson, Department of Animal Science chair.
This award recognized Baumgard and his coauthors for an article published in the March 2017 issue of the Journal of Dairy Science, “Glucose requirements of an activated immune system in lactating Holstein cows.” The highly cited recognition indicates the research’s importance to the dairy industry.
It was already known that an activated immune system requires a substantial amount of energy and amino acids, but because of the ubiquitous and migrating nature of the immune system, the requirements had never actually been calculated in vivo (in living organisms), according to Baumgard.
“We determined that the lactating dairy cow’s immune system can use up to 2 kilograms (or 4.4 pounds) of glucose per day. That’s about 1 gram of glucose per kg of metabolic body weight,” Baumgard said. “Somewhat surprisingly, this estimate turned out to be almost exactly the same when we calculated it in steers and pigs. This has implications for many aspects of animal agriculture, including to assess how farm animals perform in response to stressors such as weaning, castration, dehorning, shipping, heat stress, the transition period of cows and mastitis.
“Having a better understanding of the immune system’s metabolic requirements is the foundation for developing nutritional strategies to mitigate production losses and maximize animal health and performance,” he said.
The Journal of Dairy Science is the leading peer-reviewed general dairy research journal in the world. Baumgard was recognized in June at the virtual American Dairy Science Association Meeting.
For more information, please visit: https://www.adsa.org/about-ADSA/awards/2020/Award-Lance-Baumgard
