Curriculum vitae

Description of research and teaching

I have one major area of research and teaching, which is reproduction in domestic animals. As far as research, my main species of interest is pigs, which attracted my interest already as an undergraduate in the late 1980’s. During earlier years of my career, the focus of my research was seasonality of reproduction in mammalian species, particularly pigs. The pig presents an animal species with strictly seasonal breeding activity and characteristics of a continuous breeder within the same species but different breeds. This is something I still find very intriguing – especially in connection with seasonal effects on maternal recognition of pregnancy and embryonic development. Our research group continues with one line of research on this track. However, during the last decade or so, me and my research group, we have been more interested in the behavioral, physiological and clinical aspects of parturition along with increasing litter size. Again, the main species have been the pig. As newborns are born ever smaller and less viable, more attention needs to be put on the immediate environment, colostrum and immunology of the neonates. We have shown that a good environment, supporting nest building and physiology of the dam shortly prior parturition is of high importance for success of parturition, expulsion of fetal membranes and early development of the neonate. Additional / complementary areas of my research include early embryonic development, castration issues, transcription profiling of the reproductive tissue, aromatase inhibition as a method of pregnancy prevention (especially in canine), reproduction – behavior, animal welfare, endocrine mechanisms of early lactation and colostrum production, animal health and welfare research, behavior of the dam and newly born animals – suckling behavior, epidemiology of animal diseases such as lameness affecting reproduction in production animals (cattle / pigs).

The latest focus of our research interest involves One Health and Welfare, which can be seen as a great research focus stemming on the dynamic relationship between animals and humans. They share the genes, bacteria, pathogens, metabolism, antibiotic resistance and the very environment they live in – so pretty much everything. This intense relationship starts during the embryonic phase of live and continue until the last day. In our society, collection of data on health and welfare has been a traditional strength. Our profession has been collecting health data in digital format regarding dairy cows since 1980’s – and using it for the good of health of breeding. It is now good time to bring health and welfare related records and data banks regarding all domestic species to the final stages of digitalization and turn them into genuine Open Science platforms for researchers to take on. When this process is in full swing, it opens great opportunities for our field, especially researchers in food safety, translational animal models and animal health and welfare. I look forward to these challenges and opportunities rising in the near future – there is a natural role in there for veterinary scientists to bring our University of Helsinki as a leading university in One Health related research.

Curriculum vitae

I have one major area of research and teaching, which is reproduction in domestic animals. As far as research, my main species of interest is pigs, which attracted my interest already as an undergraduate in the late 1980’s. During earlier years of my career, the focus of my research was seasonality of reproduction in mammalian species, particularly pigs. The pig presents an animal species with strictly seasonal and characteristics of a continuous breeder within the same species but different breeds. This is something I still find very intriguing – especially in connection with seasonal effects on maternal recognition of pregnancy and embryonic development. Our research group continues with one line of research on this track. However, during the last decade or so, me and my research group, we have been more interested in the behavioral, physiological and clinical aspects of parturition along with increasing litter size. Again, the main species have been the pig. As newborns are born ever smaller and less viable, more attention needs to be put on the immediate environment, colostrum and immunology of the neonates. We have shown that a good environment, supporting nest building and physiology of the dam shortly prior parturition is of high importance for success of parturition, expulsion of fetal membranes and early development of the neonate. Additional / complementary areas of my research include early embryonic development, castration issues, transcription profiling of the reproductive tissue, aromatase inhibition as a method of pregnancy prevention (especially in canine), reproduction – behavior, animal welfare, endocrine mechanisms of early lactation and colostrum production, animal health and welfare research, behavior of the dam and newly born animals – suckling behavior, epidemiology of animal diseases such as lameness affecting reproduction in production animals (cattle / pigs).

The latest focus of our research interest involves One Health and Welfare, which can be seen as a great research focus stemming on the dynamic relationship between animals and humans. They share the gens, bacteria, pathogens, metabolism, antibiotic resistance and the very environment they live in – so pretty much everything. This intense relationship starts during the embryonic phase of live and continue until the last day. In our society, collection of data on health and welfare has been a traditional strength. Our profession has been collecting health data in digital format regarding dairy cows since 1980’s – and using it for the good of health of breeding. It is now good time to bring health and welfare related records and data banks regarding all domestic species to the final stages of digitalization and turn them into genuine Open Science platforms for researchers to take on. When this process is in full swing, it opens great opportunities for our field, especially researchers in food safety, translational animal models and animal health and welfare. I look forward to these challenges and opportunities rising in the near future – there is a natural role in there for veterinary scientists to bring our University of Helsinki as a leading university in One Health related research.