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Alltech Grant Enhances Research Partnership
with UK Agriculture
 LEXINGTON,
Ky. (April 20, 2007) − Research on animal nutrition and genomics
at the University of Kentucky took a big step forward today with
announcement of a $900,000 grant to UK from Alltech Inc., the
international biotechnology company based in Nicholasville.
The grant will foster collaboration between Alltech and UK to
advance research in nutrigenomics, which is a new field studying
the effects of nutrition on gene expression in animals.
Scientists, students, the agriculture industry and ultimately
consumers will benefit from the unique program.
“Our partnership with Alltech represents a truly ideal
collaboration. Not only does this partnership allow us to
conduct cutting-edge research, it provides our master's and
doctoral students the opportunity to work alongside the best
scientific minds from private industry and academia to find
solutions and further our knowledge,” said UK President Lee T.
Todd Jr.
“Alltech is proud to be the first company of its kind in the
world to partner with a major university in this precise way to
further education and serve the worldwide animal health
industry,” said Pearse Lyons, Alltech founder and president.
The grant will support a variety of efforts, including a seminar
series and also placement of UK College of Agriculture faculty
and students at Alltech’s new state-of-the-art laboratory
building to study how nutritional factors affect the expression
of proteins and metabolites in animals, and how diet impacts the
animal’s immune function.
“This collaboration is about improving animal health – about
helping food animals be more productive, about making
performance animals such as horses more competitive, and even
helping our pets be healthier,” said Nancy Cox, associate dean
for research in the College of Agriculture.
The funding represents a continuation and enhancement of a
long-standing partnership between UK and Alltech. Poultry
nutrition research has been jointly conducted at the Coldstream
Research Campus for several years, and in 2006 Alltech and UK
announced the formation of a new alliance to collaborate on
nutrigenomic research to improve animal diet and health.
“Our partnership with UK, which is more than two decades old,
not only helps Kentucky’s producers but also the agriculture
industry globally,” said Karl Dawson, Alltech’s director for
worldwide research. “The field of nutrigenomics is one of the
most exciting in science today and our programs with UK promise
to keep Kentucky at the forefront of this technology.”
Alltech, which is sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian
Games to be held
in 2010 in Lexington, employs 1,800 people in 85 countries. The
College of Agriculture has about 270 faculty and more than 2,500
students at the undergraduate and graduate
levels. |
Contact: Carl Nathe (859) 257-1754 or
Haven Miller, (859) 257-4736, Ext. 272
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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Copyright © 2001-2006 University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture,
Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service |
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