The Nottingham Feed Conference 2008

Dr. Joe Loughmiller serves as the Director of Nutrition for SCA Nutrition-USA, that is part of the Provimi Group and focuses solely on pig nutrition. Since 2004, Dr. Loughmiller's responsibilities include overseeing technical development and marketing of the nutrition program and providing on-farm technical assistance for customers from 500 to 50,000 sows.

Dr Victoria Morris is part of Dr Viv Allen’s team at the University of Bristol. Broadly, her research interests are: nutritional molecular microbiology with a PhD in equine nutrition investigating inclusion of starch in the diet of the horse, and food borne pathogens e.g. Campylobacter.

Dr Andy Timms is a Research Fellow at The University of Nottingham. He currently works on the biology and modelling of bacteriophage / host interactions using Campylobacter and virulent phage as a model system. His interests include: mutagenesis in bacteria - mechanisms and consequences, phage ecology and transfer of genetic information between bacteria.

Ir. Ton Sas is an animal nutritionist, in particular involved in pig nutrition. After studying at the Agricultural University in Wageningen in 1978, he stayed for 2 years in a local Dutch animal feed company. From 1980 he joined Provimi Ltd in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. As product manager for pigs, he was responsible for the development of pig feeds and feeding programs. From 1987 he moved to Provimi’s export department, to provide technical support to Provimi’s exports to Central and Eastern European countries, like Hungary, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union. Nowadays he stays mainly in Russia, where Provimi Ltd has its own 6 production facilities for premixes, feed concentrates and complete feeds. In his current position he has opportunities to visit both pig and cattle farms all over Russia and accordingly is familiar with the current situation of husbandry in Russia.

Dr. Roger Johnson is Director of Pork Quality for Farmland Foods USA. Roger has worked in the carcass composition/meat quality/pig genetic arena for the past 30 years, focusing on the factors that affect carcass composition and meat quality. Roger has accomplished this through the development, implementation and monitoring of programs that assess the impact of the Quality Control Points on branded pork programs.

Prof Mike Theodorou is head of Science Development at the BBSRC Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER), where he has worked since 1981. He also holds an honorary joint Chair at the University of Aberystwyth Institutes of Rural Science and Biological Science (IRS and IBS). He has a BSc and PhD in microbiology and biochemistry from the University of London and his research interests include the microbiology of the rumen, particularly in relation to the life history and role of the gut anaerobic fungi, and the influence that the plant genome has on plant-microbe interactions in the digestive tract of ruminant herbivores.

Dr. Donagh Berry is a principal researcher in dairy and beef genetics at Moorepark Dairy Production Research Centre, Republic of Ireland, where he has worked since completing his PhD in 2003. His research interests include national genetic evaluations, breeding objectives and breeding programs for dairy and beef cattle which includes research into "novel" traits such as disease resistance, body condition score, and residual feed intake.

Dr Patrice Humblot is the Scientific Director of the Research and Development Department of UNCEIA (French National Association for Animal Breeding; Maisons Alfort, France) since 1994. His research interests are: Fertility and reproductive physiology of dairy and beef cows with particular reference to relationships with nutrition, body condition score, metabolic hormones and genetic influences on reproduction including interactions with milk production and nutrition.

Dr Imke Mulder is a molecular immunologist in the Gut Immunology group headed by Dr Denise Kelly at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen. The group performs research on the interactions between pathogenic and commensal bacteria and the mucosal immune system. Dr Mulder’s specific research interests are the effects of early life (including nutrition and bacterial colonization) on development and function of the gut immune system of domestic animals and humans, both at a cellular and molecular level.

Mick Hazzledine is Pig Director for Premier Nutrition. Mick joined Premier in 2001 after a long career with Dalgety Agriculture. Premier Nutrition supply nutritional "know-how" in the UK, Europe and Western Canada through a team of 14 nutritionists. As a commercial nutritionist his interests are "anything that can add to the profitability of my clients" but he has a particular interest in the nutritive value of feed materials. He enjoys benchmarking commercial nutrition from the UK elsewhere in the world.

Dr Peter Løvendahl is a Senior Scientist in Animal Science at the University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Denmark, where he has worked since 1982. His research interests are quantitative genetics of dairy cattle and pigs. The subjects have been development of juvenile predictors from endocrine regulation, aggression in sows, behaviour and time budgets of dairy cows, and time series modelling of cow status from indicators available in milk.

John has spent the majority of his career with ICI Agricultural Division and subsequently AstraZeneca where he has had a number of senior management roles, spanning production of chemicals for fertilizers through to running fermentation-based businesses, covering animal feeds through agrochemicals, enzymes, pharma products, and foodstuffs. He has run ICI’s fermentation based activities in North America, and more recently has focused on the food industry, serving on the board of Marlow Foods, producers of Quorn. He now serves as Technical Director for Ensus.

Dr. Jaap van Milgen has been employed by INRA since 1992, where he holds a research position. He is the head of the "Nutrition and Metabolism" team of the INRA research unit in Saint-Gilles, France. His research interests include energy and amino acid metabolism in animals and modelling of nutritional processes.

Dr Jill Thompson is Veterinary Centre Manager of the Edinburgh Veterinary Disease Surveillance Centre, SCA, with responsibility for disease surveillance activities in the Lothians and Lanarkshire, and the laboratory-based diagnosis of diseases at the Edinburgh Centre. She is a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Specialist in Veterinary Pathology (Farm Animal), and a pig specialist.

Dr. Knud Erik Bach Knudsen is Head of Research Unit in the Nutrition and Production Physiology group at the Department of Animal Health Welfare and Nutrition, Aarhus University, Denmark. He has been working with carbohydrates for the last 20 years with special emphasis on analytical, nutritional and health aspects of carbohydrates and non-carbohydrate cell wall components.

Dr Mike Bedford is Research Director at AB-Vista Feed Ingredients, where he has worked since April 2007. His area of responsibility covers feed enzyme development for non-ruminant farm animals and the use of yeasts and yeast components in Ruminants and non-ruminants, with the emphasis for both products being optimal performance and health.

Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra is the Feed Industry Research Chair at the University of Alberta, Canada, where he has worked since 2004. His current research interests are: feed quality evaluation to support rapid evaluation systems, crop fractionation, and carbohydrate nutrition in pigs.