Research on Agricultural Animals Jeopardized
at Land Grant Institutions: Key Obstacles and Solutions
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Table 1.   Research areas (not prioritized) that potentially could be advanced by use of agricultural  animals as biomedical models. _______________________________________________________________________

Epigenetics and environment: effect of photoperiod, global warming, seasonality, and elevation on modification of gene function

Reproduction: gametogenesis, gonadal function, infertility

Aging: skeletal diseases, especially chicken and pig models; bone metabolism and osteoarthritis, especially the horse model; reproduction, especially beef cattle and mares

Obesity: genetic, dietary, hormonal influences on pre- and post-natal adipose tissue development using pig model

Pregnancy: placental growth, angiogenesis, congenital and birth defects, developmental biology especially chickens, fetal programming especially sheep to study stress, malnutrition, effects of exposure of fetuses to androgens and environmental toxins on adults, molecular/cellular basis of parturition and premature birth

Diabetes Types I and II 

Therapeutics: xenotransplantation, gene therapy, stem cells, “Farmaceuticals”; 

Toxicology, environmental endocrine disrupters

Neurobiology: behavior, stress, learning, pheromonal communication, neuroendocrinology

Immunology: autoimmune disease, inflammation, innate and mucosal

Cardiovascular disorders such as diet-induced artherosclerosis and lethal cardia tachyarrhythmias (ventricular fibrillation) using minature or normal pigs

Nutrition: energetic balance including homeostatic mechanism, regulation of metabolism, use of neonatal piglet as pediatric model for studies of nutrition, metabolism and gastroenterology

Ophthalmology: retinal degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, macular degeneration

Comparative physiology (e.g., Understanding of what makes cattle breeds different with respect to reproduction, lactation, growth, bone structure, fat deposition, altitude and heat tolerance, and resistance to specific pathogens will be invaluable in elucidating related physiological processes important to human health.)

Radiation biology

Biomechanics

Renal biology

Diseases: Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE); Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV); Crohn’s Disease; sexually transmitted diseases (STD); enteric including Transmissible Gastroenteritis (TGE); viral, E. coli 01578; cancer including prostate, breast, ovary (chicken), hematopoiesis, leukemia; cattle as a model for salmonellosis, tuberculosis and cryptosporidiosis; pathogen transmission of emerging diseases that infect animals and humans such as use of cattle to study tick-borne infections

Disorders:  liver, epilepsy, and sleep such as narcolepsy