Prebiotic Improvement of Pig Gut Health and Welfare

Studies will take a systems approach to develop interdisciplinary skills from Animal Science: collecting data on animal production, nutrition including the use of supplements (prebiotics), feed analysis, and gut development. Together with skills in Food Microbiology, investigation, of microbial community analysis, whilst also developing skills in Molecular Biology skills through the use of 'omics to analyse innate immunity, and global gene expression.
In the first year of the project, one study is proposed (Study Microbial communities will be profiled using 16s rRNA using the in-house MiSeq platform and analysed to characterise the development of the gut microbiota by location, time and treatment. Tissue samples for analysis of gene expression and histology will be obtained at the point of slaughter. These will form the basis for the second year to evaluate the effect of XOS on gut development with respect to gut architecture and goblet cell density.Trial 1) with the aim of characterising microbiome dIn the fourth year the student will undertake a placement with AB Vista relating to the design and communication of commercial nutrition research. This fits well with the production of publishable work for inclusion in the thesis and will broaden understanding of the role of research in product development and diet formulation. This placement will facilitate understanding of the competing needs of science and industry in designing nutrition trials and provide the 'application' element of the project during the writing up phase, contributing to a balanced thesisiversity changes in response to XOS supplementation of the weaning pig