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G. E. Dahl, The Ninth International Workshop on the Biology of Lactation in Farm Animals and Triennial Lactation Symposium, Journal of Animal Science, Volume 87, Issue suppl_13, April 2009, Pages 1–2, https://doi.org/10.2527/jas.2008-1769
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This volume represents the span of invited papers presented at the 9th International Workshop on the Biology of Lactation in Farm Animals held in Indianapolis, IN, on July 11, 2008. This meeting marked a return to a satellite arrangement with the annual American Society of Animal Science meeting and served as the Triennial Lactation Symposium. The format was a mixture of invited presentations across a broad theme related to immune function of the mammary gland, interspersed with submitted abstracts of novel studies related to that topic. Kerst Stelwagen (Stelwagen et al., 2009) began the workshop by detailing the ongoing work focused on characterization of bioactive components in bovine colostrum and milk, with particular emphasis on those factors that possess immunomodulatory activity. The long-range goal of that research is to tap the additional value of milk through targeted manipulation of the content of immunomodulators to benefit human and animal health.
In his presentation, Doug Bannerman provided a substantial review of recent work to identify cellular mechanisms activated in response to a pathogenic infiltration of the mammary gland (Bannerman, 2009). Evidence is accumulating to support the notion that cytokines and other soluble noncytokine factors mediate many of the early inflammatory responses to pathogens in the udder, but there are different patterns that appear depending on the type of pathogen. Because cytokines confer both positive and deleterious effects on the mammary gland, greater understanding of the pathogen-specific activation of the innate immune response should allow for more appropriate manipulation of treatments for mastitis in the future to improve the ultimate outcome of the disease treatment.
