#27 -Andrea Luttman: How much does social stress affect pigs?

As we all know, pigs, just like humans, are susceptible to stress. Too much stress on a pig can cause it  to grow poorly and have more health complications. In today’s episode, I talk with Andrea Lutman about her work measuring stress factors in piglets at weaning, and working to define resilience in pig populations.

Meet the guest: 

Andrea Luttman is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate and USDA NIFA pre-doctoral fellow in the Genetics & Genome Sciences program at Michigan State University studying under Dr. Cathy Ernst in the Animal Science department. Prior to graduate school, she received her Bachelor’s in Animal Science with an Animal Biology concentration. Her current research is using an integrated approach to characterize stress resilience in pigs and molecular techniques including Whole Genome Bisulfite Sequencing and Transcriptomics to investigate the genetic mechanisms that regulate stress response and therefore resilience.