If you’ve never heard of the Dairy Innovation Hub, it’s an investment by the state of Wisconsin at three UW campuses for dairy research. UW-Madison, UW-Platteville, and UW-River Falls all participate and are looking at many different aspects of dairy. There are over 50 project that’ve been funded, studied, researched, and potentially will be put into action. Some will end up benefiting dairy cattle and some will even benefit humans.
Maria Woldt is the Programing Manager for the Dairy Innovation Hub and she was explaining that the funding for the Hub is intended to be used for people, equipment, and the research itself. All of these research projects are related to dairy, but not in the way you might assume. “That’s all facets of dairy, it’s not just cow stuff. It’s environmental, community-based…the cow itself, but that’s also human nutrition as well,” said Woldt. One of the big questions being looked at is how dairy can benefit human nutrition.
She brought up some examples of projects that are currently being looked at.
- At UW-Platteville they have a team of researchers who are creating a 3D printing filament that’s made from milk.
- At UW-Madison there’s a nutritional scientist who’s working on a supplement derived from cheese whey that can help fight obesity.
- At UW-Madison a grad student is studying certain types of cheese that have antihypertensive properties. Meaning that there are certain types of cheese that can help fight heart disease and prevent heart attacks.
- At UW-River Falls a researcher’s developing a new way to dehorn calves.
You can take a look at all of the funded projects through the Hub right here.
Woldt said that she gets asked a lot if they plan to expand the Hub to other schools, but as of now there are no plans in place. She explained that keeping it to the schools that have actual dairy programs makes a lot of sense for now, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways for other Universities to collaborate on a project. The key is to make sure that the primary person receiving the funding is from one of the three schools in the Dairy Innovation Hub.
I’ve reached out to each of the main researchers on all four of the big projects listed above and I hope to talk with them a little deeper about their projects and how the ideas came to life.
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