Learning objectives
Students will acquire deep understanding on what animal welfare is and microbial genomics applied to outbreak investigation, source attribution and risk assessment. will be described. Students will develop skills in assessing welfare in livestock using the most recent welfare assessment tools developed around the world. Students will become familiar with the current European regulations on animal care ‘from farm to fork’ and with the most common infringements of the European laws as well as Whole genome sequencing platforms and technologies. The nexus between animal health and welfare, human health and wellbeing and environment will be also described. Moreover benefits of a real-time outbreak investigation and a more targeted source attribution and hazard identification/characterisation will be discussed in order to manage the major challenges and opportunities.
Prerequisites
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Course unit content
• Animal welfare assessment tools
• Animal welfare issues (housing and management, transport, stunning and killing)
• Identification and analysis of the main hazards/stressors during animal production life
• Risk assessment and management of poor welfare, health and productivity from birth to slaughter)
• WGS and outbreak investigation (definition of outbreak, subtyping approaches, platforms for real-time outbreak investigation)
• WGS and source attribution (frequently matched, machine learning, network models)
• Foodborne Risk management by Genome Wide Association Studies
• WGS and risk assessment (pathogen typing and characterisation for hazard identification, prediction of virulence potential for hazard characterisation, prediction of phenotypic traits associated to growth/survival for exposure assessment)
Full programme
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Bibliography
Notes of lectures; scientific publications
Teaching methods
Face-to-face lectures, scientific seminaries, on farm visits, tutorials, scenario-based learning, problem-based learning
Assessment methods and criteria
This course includes two modules “Risk Analysis in Animal Welfare" and "Microbial Genomics for Risk Analysis”. Final grading of the entire integrated course is calculated as an average of the scores obtained in the two courses.
Oral examination for both modules. The oral examination will verify the theoretical and applicative knowledges of the student.
Other information
Participation is not mandatory but highly recommended
