Recipient Organization
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
FORT COLLINS,CO 80523
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Poor reproductive efficiency in domestic ruminants limits profitability and sustainability in the United States of America.Greater than 56 % of the nation's breeding cows (beef and dairy) and 70 percent of the USA breeding ewe inventory exists in western and midwestern states that are associated with the RMRS symposium. Collectively the dairy, beef, and sheep industries contribute approximately $81.5 billion in farm receipts and an estimated overall production value of $192 billion annually. There are about 2.3 million jobs related to the production and processing of these animals or their products. Please see: Cryan, R. 2004, U.S. Dairy Vol. 10 No. 1; Lamb, G.C., 2008, The BeefSite. www.thebeefsite.com/articles/1698; Otto, D. 2002, www.beef.org; Shiflett, J.S. 2008, ASI, www.sheepusa.org.The most limiting economic production trait is reproductive efficiency, which is the most restrictive factor to profitability in animal production systems.This is especially true in the modern dairy industry, but infertility and failure to get animals pregnant also impacts beef producers because of delayed onset of puberty, extended postpartum anestrus and, consequently, production of lighter calves at weaning and lower cash receipts. In the beef industry alone, the cost of infertility to U.S. producers was estimated to be over $1.06 billion annually (Lamb, G.C., 2008, The BeefSite. www.thebeefsite.com/articles/1698). Sheep producers are also impacted because of impaired reproductive efficiency.The Rocky Mountain Reproductive Sciences (RMRS) Symposium goal is to foster trans-disciplinary interactions and student training among scientists, which will lead to translational reproductive science collaborations in USDA-NIFA priority focal areas of gonadal function, hypothalamic-pituitary axis and embryo and fetal development & microbiome of reproductive tract. This one-day conference highlights post-baccalaureate student (MS, PhD, DVM, MD, clinical residents, and interns) training by emphasizing communication and cross-fertilization of both Animal Agricultural (USDA-NIFA) and human biomedical (NIH) research progress. Students not only present posters, platform talks and elevator 3 min talks and ask first questions, they also help host speakers and manage the Symposium. The RMRS Symposium provides a platform to cultivate new scientific ideas, increase access to shared resources, and expand expertise across large agricultural animals and human biomedical research. The symposium will generate new collaborations between institutions and advance the field of reproductive sciences. The RMRS Symposium is an outstanding platform for student training in basic and clinical research. The symposium's diverse attendees provide a blend of reproductive biology/medical /veterinary/wildlife backgrounds that foster communication and collaboration in animal agricultural and human biomedical research training. A survey is sent electronically to all attendees to assess effectiveness of the symposium and student learning outcomes.
Animal Health Component
20%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
80%
Applied
20%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This conference grant has relevance to the USDA-NIFA Program Priority area: Animal Reproduction (AHPAP, A1211). The Rocky Mountain Reproductive Sciences (RMRS) Symposium has been hosted annually for 15 years at Colorado State University with the consistent collaboration from ten Universities and Institutions from the West and Midwest. The mission of the RMRS Symposium is to foster student training, improve communication and collaborative research and share expertise across various animal and human research models in the reproductive sciences. The meeting has averaged 122 attendees since 2017 with participants from 51 institutions, 28 states and 7 countries. Forty student trainees presented posters in 2023 and 8 trainees presented invited oral platform talks. The symposium will generate new collaborations between institutions and advance the field of reproductive sciences. The RMRS Symposium is an outstanding platform for student training in basic and clinical reproduction research. The USDA stakeholders that benefit from the meeting include the livestock industry by primarily addressing poor reproductive efficiency in domestic ruminants. The purpose of this proposal, is to strengthen collaboration between regional scientists, share research results and train graduate students to be the next leaders in basic and applied/clinical livestock reproductive biology. Success of the RMRS symposium will be facilitated through three objectives:1. Support travel and honorarium for two keynote Speakers.2. Support costs associated with managing the annual RMRS Symposium.3. Conduct post-symposium surveys to provide future scientific direction for the symposium, assess scholarly impact through student engagement and identify new collaborations between research groups and institutions.
Project Methods
Rationale and specific relationship of the project's objectives to USDA-AFRI. The general USDA-NIFA Program Area Priority that is impacted by the proposed conference is #2 Animal health and production and animal products. More specifically it is primarily related to Program Priority area Animal Reproduction (AHPAP, A1211) and secondarily to Diseases of Agricultural Animals (AHPAP A1221). The Animal Reproduction program focuses on improving reproductive efficiency or enhancing reproductive management, including mitigating reductions in fertility especially focusing on:a. Gonadal function (including production, function, and preservation of gametes)b. Hypothalamic-pituitary axisc. Embryonic and fetal development (including interaction between the conceptus and its uterine environment)d. Microbiome of the reproductive tract.The relevant Diseases of Agricultural Animals focal areas impacted by the RMRS symposium are:a. Cellular, molecular, genomic/genetic or whole-animal aspects of animal health and disease, with emphasis on maintaining healthy agricultural animals to ensure a safe and adequate food supply.b. Maintenance of homeostasis including innate immune responses.From an agricultural perspective, it is necessary to generate nutritious and healthy animal food and fiber economically to meet the needs of a massively urbanized and more affluent human population, while reducing impact on the environment. It is very clear that there is a pressing need to support educational/training of the next generation of scientists in both basic and clinical/practical livestock agriculture. Much of the science and approaches in animal studies have relevance to humans. For example, understanding how gametes function and develop embryos through fertilization can be studied in both animals and humans. Likewise, transfer of embryos and study of embryo development in animals, has relevance to development of these techniques in humans. Teaching methods of in vitro fertilization using bovine oocytes can be used to train not only animal embryo transfer, but also human embryo transfer to achieve best rates of success in both.Probably the most relevant human: domestic animal interaction in context of improved reproduction and reproductive outcomes is the utilization of large domestic animals in high-priority focal areas of biomedical and agricultural research. The RMRS symposium includes research that focuses on biology of reproduction, reproductive pathobiology, metabolism, fetal programming (developmental origin of disease), nutrition (obesity and underfed/malnourished, cachexia), and prevention and treatment of diseasesMethod of AdvertisingEach December, all former RMRS Symposium attendees are emailed a primary announcement and flyer that contains the date, time, and place of the next RMRS Symposium. The conference theme, keynote speakers, abstract and registration deadlines, and additional information are also included in the primary announcement flyer. The RMRS Symposium flyer is then emailed monthly along with registration and abstract deadline reminders, with more frequent announcements occurring the month before the conference, as the deadlines and conference date approach. The abstract and registration deadlines are three and one week(s) before the conference date, respectively.The RMRS Symposium announcements are also distributed within the college-wide announcements for the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at CSU and emailed to all faculty and graduate students in the department of Biomedical Sciences, Department of Clinical Sciences and Department of Animal/Equine Sciences (College of Agricultural Sciences) at CSU. Additionally, RMRS Symposium committee members and past attendees are encouraged to forward all RMRS Symposium announcements to their networks to increase and promote conference participation.Specific Objectives1. Support travel and honorarium for two keynote Speakers. The RMRS symposium hosts two keynote speakers to highlight both basic (benchtop) and clinical (bedside/pen-side) sciences. The 2022 RMRS Program: "Identifying the problem (sperm phenotypes and diagnostics) and finding the solution (stem cell therapies) for male infertility" provides a recent example of this keynote structure. The basic science keynote lecture was delivered by Dr. Peter Sutovsky, PhD, Department of Animal Science, University of Missouri. The clinical science keynote lecture was delivered by Dr. Kyle Orwig, PhD, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences) from the University of Pittsburgh.2. Support costs associated with managing the RMRS Symposium. Costs of venues and food for the symposium have escalated over the past few years. We are searching for financial assistance other than our registration fees to cover the costs for the meeting room, food for breaks and lunch for participants. Eight students are reviewed and selected to give platform talks and a monetary award is proposed for these students. Likewise we added eight student 3 minute elevator talks. The ARBL Staff will continue to manage the symposium with assistance of nominal funds from this grant.3. Conduct annual post-symposium surveys to assess scholarly impact through student engagement and identify new collaborations between research groups and institutions. Annually, we will conduct a post-symposium survey to understand what was done correctly and how we can improve the venue. All attendees will be asked to recommend a symposium theme and to suggest two speakers: one basic and one clinical keynote for the next symposium. These suggestions will be vetted and sorted by the program committee, and then distributed to the attendees for a ranking that will strongly be considered by the committee. Through this mechanism we are assured of selecting the most impactful speakers for each of the proposed symposia. We are keen on understanding and improving the student experience. For this reason, surveys will be tagged as student and non-student responses so that we can carefully consider student impressions. Each expected outcome will be assigned a score of 1-10 with 10 being the best in context of learning impact on the expected student outcomes (see Expected Outcomes). The ARBL staff and the program committee have experience with developing and analyzing symposia surveys.The RMRS symposium program is developed by the Program Committee with suggestions/advice from the RMRS Scientific Advisory Committee and former student attendees. The program features 8 student platform presentations, 2 student poster sessions, and 2 keynote lectures by key leaders in the field of reproductive physiology (all distributed in a Program eBook). Students manage all aspects of the meeting. Attendees include post-baccalaureate trainees, faculty, private clinicians, private infertility clinics and other research scientists. Students are encouraged to interact with other attendees from other institutions during the lunch break and the social at the end of the meeting.For 16 years, the RMRS Symposium fostered interactions between a diverse group of PhD, DVM and MD scientists representing agricultural and biomedical interests. The meeting brings these groups together to discuss advances in both animal and human reproduction to deepen understanding of reproductive physiology. This successful collaboration is driven by commitments between seven Universities and Institutions from the West and Midwest regions and has attracted attendees from 51 different institutions, 28 states and 7 countries.