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  • Seminar: "Improving Cold Resistance and Immunity to Diseases" - Rao Dukkipati, BVSc, MVSc, PhD

Seminar: "Improving Cold Resistance and Immunity to Diseases" - Rao Dukkipati, BVSc, MVSc, PhD

Date & Time

Friday, February 07, 2025, 9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.

Category

Academic Seminar

Location

Foran Hall, Room 138A

59 Dudley Road New Brunswick, NJ, 08901

Contact

Stacey Pontoriero

Endocrinology and Animal Biosciences Semiar:

"Improving Cold Resistance and Immunity to Diseases"

Rao Dukkipati, BVSc, MVSc, PhD
Associate Professor, Veterinary Immunologist and Geneticist
Shreiber School of Veterinary Medicine, Rowan University


Rao Dukkipati is a trained veterinary immunologist and geneticist. His PhD project (Massey University, New Zealand) was aimed at identifying genetic factors influencing immune responses to a killed Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis vaccine in Australian fine-wool merino sheep. After completion of his PhD, he worked as a postdoc for four years in a subunit vaccine (against Johne’s disease) project within the School of Veterinary Science at Massey University. During the past 14 years, as an academic at Massey University, Rao had primarily taught immunology (BSc and BVSc), animal genetics (BVSc, BAnSci, BVetTech) and reproductive physiology (BAnSci). His research, during the 18 years since PhD completion, can primarily be categorized into three areas: immunology, genetics, and evaluation of analgesics for post-operative pain management. He was successful in securing several grants from various external and internal funding agencies. Rao has so far supervised 10 postgraduate students (5 PhD and 5 Masters) to completion and has 42 refereed (31 journal and 11 conference) publications and 28 other conference publications. His talk (on 7 Feb) at Rutgers will primarily be focused on the following aspects: 1) a journey through development, immunogenicity, and validation of a subunit vaccine for Johne’s disease (paratuberculosis); 2) development of a milk-based multiplex ELISA for diagnosing Johne’s disease in dairy cattle; 3) innovative approaches to improve cold resistance in newborn lambs; and 4) potential evaluation of analgesics using NanoString technology (PCR-free gene expression).