I am interested in further understanding the role of the placenta in fetal development, particularly that of muscle development. My interests ultimately lie in how the placenta affects the postnatal performance of the animal, including pork quality. I am interested in further describing the variation in placental efficiency and how that relates to the potential for increased litter size and therefore production. Particularly, I am interested in how the nutrition of the dam during gestation affects placental efficiency, what nutrients are transported to the fetus during gestation, how placental efficiency affects growth potential and pork quality, as well as if nutrition can be altered to influence placental efficiency. I plan to design and implement studies in which the variation seen in placental efficiency can be further elucidated. I am also interested in the effects of placental efficiency on muscle performance. Measuring placental efficiency and collecting a muscle sample and tracking the growth and performance of that animal, measuring the nutrient transporter density and blood metabolites may provide insight into how the placenta can affect muscle, and therefore animal performance, as well as allowing for investigation of nutritional avenues to improve these characteristics.
