Team Sequoia

Assistant Professor

Phone: 301-405-8457
Email: bbequett@umd.edu

Research Interests:

Ruminants convert human inedible plant material into high quality human edible food. However, at the same time, ruminants are particularly inefficient when it comes to converting dietary protein and energy into tissue gain or milk components. This is a particular problem in ruminants fed forages and grasses where production is low and the efficiency of depositing dietary nitrogen into animal products may reach only 5 to 15% in sheep and cattle, and perhaps only 30% conversion efficiency by highproducing dairy cows. By contrast, monogastric species such as pigs, poultry and fishes exhibit higher efficiencies (>45%). Our program takes a species comparative approach to identify aspects of nutrient metabolism and partition that contribute to lowerproduction efficiency by ruminants on the onehand, but higher efficiency by monogastric animals on the other hand. By characterizing and comparing the metabolic roadmap in farm animals, pivotal points in metabolism can be targeted to further improve efficiency by ruminants, and also raise the metabolic efficiency of monogastrics. Accomplishing this should lead to important benefits relating to efficiency of resource use, reduction in feed costs, reduced environmental pollution, lower fat and higher protein products from animals, and benefits for animal and human health.

The overall aims of our research program are to:

• Identify aspects of ruminant and monogastric animal metabolism that contribute to poor use of dietary protein and energy.
• Develop feeding or other consumer acceptable strategies to improve production efficiency and reduce animal wastes.

Areas of Research

• Urea recycling and ammonia detoxification in ruminants
• Define the Nutritional Metabolome: Amino acid and energy substrate (glucose, starch, fatty acids) metabolism by ruminant, fish, poultry and mammary gland tissues
• Establish dietary recommendations for optimal growth and lactation based on the macronutrient metabolic needs.

Research Techniques and Approaches

• Stable isotope tracers
• Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry
• ¹³C Mass Isotope Distribution Analysis
• Whole Animal and Trans-organ Flux Measurements
• Primary Cell Culture

For more information, visit my Team Sequoia Lab Homepage: