The Dairy Innovation Hub held its fourth annual Dairy Symposium on May 14 at UW–Madison’s Memorial Union. More than 250 people attended the event, including researchers, students, campus staff, and others from the dairy community.
Throughout the day, attendees shared and discussed research funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub. The event included keynote speakers, breakout sessions, student presentations, as well as research posters. The Dairy Innovation Hub hosts this event as the academic version of the public Dairy Summit held each fall.
The Dairy Innovation Hub is a $7.8M-per-year state-funded effort to support the success of Wisconsin’s dairy community by advancing science, developing talent, and leveraging collaboration at UW–Madison, UW–Platteville, and UW–River Falls. Since its launch in 2019, the Hub has funded more than 250 projects and 18 faculty positions across the three campuses.
“The Dairy Innovation Hub is a true partnership,” said associate vice chancellor for research at UW-Madison, Cynthia Czajkowski. “It brings together industry leaders, state government, and our universities to support dairy in Wisconsin.”
Afternoon sessions focused on animal health and rural community growth. Topics included dairy calf immunity, cattle genetics, and farm labor trends.
Can Whey Byproducts Prevent Osteoporosis?
We always knew that dairy was good for your bones. The UW Dairy Innovation Hub is taking it a step further to look at how some underused byproducts of dairy food production can be a game changer for bone health as you age. Mitchell Armstrong is a PhD student at UW-Madison, figuring out how to bring more value to the dairy industry and human nutrition.
Armstrong says people are going bananas for whey protein isolate — it’s key for bodybuilding, for example. But there’s a co-product that comes with it called Whey Protein Phospholipid Concentrate or WPPC. And right now, it’s not valuable. Armstrong’s research with the UW Dairy Innovation Hub is uncovering health benefits of WPPC that could bring more dollars to this co-product.
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