UDDER TOPICS

A Global Organizaon for Mass Control and Milk Quality
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profitable dairy industry in Ethiopia – his home country.
This is achievable through his role as a teacher
and researcher at the University of Gondar.
Kruthika Patel
A nave of India, Patel
developed an interest in
microbiology and mas‐
s as a fourth year veterinary
medicine student.
During her clinical
training at the teaching
hospital, she encountered
many cases of
mass –
India’s most common
dairy cale disease.
bedding bacterial counts and mass risk.
Rienkje van Hoeij
Following her graduaon as a veterinarian, van Hoeij
started working as a PhD candidate to gain
experience and grow as a professional researcher to
develop a scienfic career in academia or industry.
She described her PhD research as the “tailored dry
period” project, which studies the effect of a
Patel worked on biofilms
of Staphylococcus aureus
and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as part of her master’s
degree program. During this research, she looked at
combinaons of different concentraons of
anbiocs and a chemical agent that would
destroy biofilms.
As a PhD student, she is managing and compleng a
pilot study to evaluate the effect of applying selecve
dry cow therapy at the quarter level – looking at
measures of udder health and anmicrobial use, as
compared to blanket dry cow therapy.
For her major thesis project, she is invesgang the
relaonship between bedding bacterial counts and
udder health on more than 200 U.S. dairy farms
located in 19 states. Addionally, this project aims to
gain a beer understanding of many of bedding‐ and
management‐related factors that may influence
shortened or omied dry period on elevaons of
somac cell count, intramammary infecons and
occurrence of mass in the dry period and
subsequent lactaon.
Enthusiasc about sharing her research, van Hoeij
gives poster and oral presentaons whenever
possible. She presented a poster at European College
of Bovine Health Management in Slovenia last year
and won the award for best presenter at the Animal
Nutrion Research Forum 2015 in Belgium.
Also, she presented her work on udder health at the
EU COST acon meeng on Dairycare in Zadar,
Croaa, and her research regarding the effect of dry
period length with and without the use of anbiocs
at the American Dairy Science Associaon Annual
Meeng this past summer.
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