Dairy Systems Biology

Dairy production is among the most challenging sectors in world animal production. Indeed, and for the dairy sector to be profitable, it requires an efficient integration of different disciplines including animal feeding, selection and genetics, housing, milking and milk processing to name but a few. The evolution of the dairy sector over the last five decades has been immense and the links with private and public R&D has been a cornerstone feature. Over the last 20 years, Omics technologies such as Proteomics, Trancriptomics, or Metabolomics became an important part of scientific rationale. Omics allowed an in-depth perspective on dairy sciences that, among other things, led to an integral view on the complex and intricate network of genes, proteins and metabolites that explained, for instance, how dairy animals react to a given stimulus or study trait. Such an approach led to significant achievements, otherwise impossible to attain and opened novel research avenues in this fascinating field.

This section is specifically dedicated to the use of Omics in dairy animal research. We aim to publish high quality manuscripts that use this set of technologies to address important issues for dairy animals and the dairy sector. These include for instance mammary gland physiology, feeding and nutritional physiology, productive diseases, animal health and welfare or the safety of milk and other dairy products. We will publish fundamental but also applied research studies that are truly able to make a difference in the field.

Keywords

• Omics
• Proteomics
• Transcriptomics
• Metabolomics
• Systems biology
• Gene expression networks
• Dairy production
• Mammary gland
• Dairy animal physiology
• Dairy animal health
• Dairy animal production
• Dairy products