Meet Mariana Meneguzzi, our latest addition to Farm Journal’s PORK’s Up & Coming Leaders feature. We are showcasing some of the fresh, new voices of the pork industry who combine innovative thought and work ethic with scientific savvy and a passion to make a difference.
Age: 27
Education: DVM, Brazil; MSc and currently pursuing Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Hometown: Capinzal, Santa Catarina – Brazil
Q. How did you become interested in pursuing a career in the swine industry?
A. I come from the countryside of Santa Catarina, Brazil, where poultry and swine production are an important part of the state economy. My family has a truck company responsible for the transportation of poultry from the farms to the slaughterhouse. The close contact with animal agriculture as a child led me to pursue my passion to become a veterinarian, with my entire focus on food animal production, specifically in swine health and production.
Q. How have internships provided you with direction?
A. In the first year of my veterinary program, I joined the Veterinary Clinical Analyses Laboratory at my home university. Later, I was awarded a scholarship to perform a project aiming to investigate the use of commercial feed additives to prevent urinary infections in sows. My daily tasks were to go to the swine farm, check and feed the sows with a specific diet. Also, I was responsible for following the farrowing and managing the piglets in their first hours of life. The daily farm work offered me hands-on experience with sow and piglet management together with expertise in laboratory clinical techniques. This first experience sparked my interest in swine.
Q. Did you take part in undergraduate research experiences?
A. I was an undergraduate visiting student at McGill University in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Canada. I had the opportunity to enroll in classes and focused my course-load on swine production, nutrition, and animal health. Besides classes, I worked as an undergraduate research assistant in the Poultry Complex at the MacDonald Campus Farm, and together with the nutrition team, we tested different diets and their effect on broilers and layers performance. I also served as an undergraduate research student at EMBRAPA, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, in Concórdia, Santa Catarina, Brazil, where I worked at the Swine Bacteriology and Food Safety Laboratory. I participated in a project aiming to modernize the carcass inspection system in Brazilian slaughterhouses. I also was an undergraduate visiting student in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, helping develop an experimental disease model to characterize the spread of swine dysentery within a population of naïve pigs.
Q. Describe any other swine-related experiences you’ve had.
A. During my master’s at the University of Minnesota, I was able to visit several swine farms. This gave me hands-on practice in sample collection, disease surveillance, and study experimental design while I was learning about US swine production systems. During my Ph.D., as a side of my main Ph.D. project, I was involved in testing the efficacy of an intramuscular vaccine against Lawsonia intracellularis. The experiment gave me the opportunity to improve my understanding of immunology, laboratory methods (e.g., ELISpot, flow cytometry), and study design.
Q. Tell us about your current research.
A. My research focuses on the development and application of a novel swine viromic assay that is able to sequence in real-time (in less than 48 hours) multiple viruses from one sample. The data generated from this method can help us better understand swine viral co-infections (e.g., can aid in answering questions such as “what is the prevalence of viral co-infections in swine herds?” or “how are multiple viruses co-evolving?”). Therefore, the overall goal of my project is to better support swine health decisions and interventions (e.g., enhancing diagnosis, surveillance, and control) by improving the output of whole-genome sequencing when using field samples (e.g., nasal swabs, oral fluids, fecal samples).
Q. What is your generation’s greatest challenge?
A. Production systems have become larger and more sophisticated in their approach to disease control. I believe one of the greatest challenges for swine veterinarians today is to be able to analyze large volume of health-related data and translate these data into health management and disease prevention strategies. An example is the next-generation sequence data that is being generated at an astounding rate. The challenge and opportunity for my generation is to help the swine industry to use this data to make the best decisions to control and prevent diseases.
Editor’s Note: Meneguzzi is part of the National Pork Board’s Pork Scholars Program, intended to develop highly trained professionals who are dedicated to a career in the U.S. swine industry. The program includes a research component with a cooperating university but focuses intensely on developing people and talent for the industry. This unique opportunity consists of practical on-farm experience with an industry cooperator. It also includes cross-training across more than one academic discipline (i.e. genetics and data science).
