Paiton McDonald
2024 - 2027 FFAR Fellows
Introduction
The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) is pleased to announce the seventh cohort of graduate students to be accepted to the FFAR Fellows Program.
Paiton McDonald is a doctoral student at Michigan State University and was selected as a FFAR Fellow studying Dairy Cattle Nutritional Immunology.
Keep reading to learn more about Paiton's research and why she applied to be a FFAR Fellow.
About Me
Hometown: Fletcher, North Carolina
While I didn’t grow up directly in agriculture, I would look out at the fields of grazing cows in Wisconsin and later at the cow-calf pairs in North Carolina and I couldn’t help but be fascinated. However, it wasn’t until participating in the World Food Prize (WFP) NC Youth Institute that I found my passion for agricultural research. I learned that healthy animals have a greater capacity to feed the world, provide vaccination and educational opportunities to children, transport safer water, and so much more. What if we would serve the animals that serve the world by ensuring they are set up for success as neonates? This question dictated my research pursuits at Iowa State University.
As I pursued my bachelor’s degree, I joined Dr. McGill’s lab as an undergraduate research assistant, where we investigated calf immune responses to respiratory diseases. I fell in love with the research process and the biochemical components of the immune system. As a result, I desired more opportunities to learn how to enhance this incredible system in each animal, which led me to pursue a PhD. I aspire to advance animal systems and promote global food security by developing sustainable and resilient practices that set youngstock up for success.
Why the FFAR Fellows Program?
As a FFAR Fellow I am excited to develop skills that will help me to be an effective communicator, collaborator, and investigator. My research mentors have done and will continue to do an excellent job preparing me for the rigor of academia. However, I aim to work at the intersection of academia, local producers, global pastoralists, the USDA, and non-governmental organizations such as the WFP Foundation. Agriculture is an evolving field full of challenges that require interdisciplinary teamwork to develop sustainable solutions. The FFAR Fellows program is an opportunity to meet people outside of my discipline while engaging in active learning and listening with them. Beyond my cohort, FFAR provides a chance to gain industry training, which will help me approach challenges with a producer-based mindset. My industry mentors at United Animal Health are leaders within the ruminant team and exhibit many technical and soft skills essential for effective teamwork.
Effective communication with producers to hear their needs and share my findings from the lab bench is critical to contributing solutions to challenges. As an active participant in the cohort and mentee, I will receive opportunities to develop my interpersonal communication and creative problem-solving skills, which could then build my contribution to advancing global nutrition security. After completing my PhD, I would like to be a global animal health principal investigator who fills gaps in neonatal immune development with a blended approach of mechanistic immunology and applied animal management.
My Research
Calves are one of the high-risk groups on any dairy farm due to their immune naïveté, dependence on immune development, and high exposure to potentially pathogenic microbes. Additionally, dry cows are in the final months of pregnancy while remodeling their mammary gland and initiating colostrogenesis on a low-energy diet. My research primarily focuses on advancing neonatal and dry cow immunity by investigating these potential nutritional deficits.
One area of focus is evaluating colostrum (first milking) and transition milk (milkings 2-6) as sustainable, nutritional supplements for preweaned calves. Calves are immunonaïve at birth, so calf nutritional programs must provide nutrients for maintenance processes, growth, and immune development. Colostrum delivers an abundance of growth factors and immune proteins for the neonate, but current research is limited, creating a significant gap in our understanding of colostrum’s versatility. Similarly, transition milk is an emerging area of calf nutrition research as it improves health scores while enhancing gut maturation. However, these studies have yet to investigate the driving forces behind these results, which have significant implications for how we can feed calves to improve immune development.
My second research area focuses on heifers and dry cows in late gestation, emphasizing maternal mucosal immunology and the subsequent impact on calf mucosa microbial homeostasis. I will investigate glutamine's role in enhancing vaccine efficacy while probing at the mechanisms driving altered biochemistry of a crucial immune protein in colostrum: immunoglobulin A.
We expect that by addressing potential nutrient deficits in both age groups, we can enhance the animal’s immune cell function and improve antibody production, resulting in healthier animals. Ultimately, with healthier animals, we can support producers, steward antimicrobials, and contribute to human food security.
Sponsor
United Animal Health
More About Me
Outside of the lab, I enjoy reading, volunteering with kids ministry, going on walks, and spending quality time with friends whether we watch Disney or Hallmark movies or eat ice cream together. I also love to paddle board when I'm at the lake.
