AMSA has announced that Dr. Teresa Davis will be the featured speaker in the keynote symposium entitled “Nutritional Importance of Animal Protein in the Diet,” during the 74th AMSA Reciprocal Meat Conference (RMC) hybrid meeting. This session, sponsored by Smithfield Foods, will take place on Wednesday, August 18, 2021, at Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in Reno, Nevada.

Dr. Teresa Davis, Professor of Pediatrics at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) at Baylor College of Medicine and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University, will kick off the last day of the conference with her talk titled “Nutritional Importance of Animal Protein in the Diet.” In 2018, 97% of the population consumed animal protein, making it a staple among the world’s diet. Proteins are the building blocks of all tissues in the body and support the growth and development of children, maintenance of muscle mass in adults, and good health for all. In this presentation Dr. Davis will share the importance of animal protein in the diet and the advantages of consuming animal sourced foods at all stages of life will be discussed. Additionally, some of the common misunderstandings about animal sourced foods will be addressed.

Dr. Davis received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before joining the faculty.  She leads an extramurally funded research program focused on the nutritional regulation of protein metabolism and growth, amino acid sensing, and insulin signaling that is enabling the development of new strategies to improve feed efficiency and lean growth in swine.  Dr. Davis has served as an American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) Director-at Large, Editorial Board member of the Journal of Animal Science, and Chair of the ASAS Public Policy Committee.  She is a former President of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), member of the 2020 USDA/HHS 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and the current Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Nutrition.  She has served as a Scientific Advisor of both the International Life Sciences Institute North American Food, Nutrition, and Safety Program and the Riddet Institute, New Zealand and was a Fulbright U.S. Distinguished Scholar and a Distinguished Foreign Scholar in China.  She is a former Chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Baylor College of Medicine and the current Director of the Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program at the CNRC.  Based on her USDA and NIH supported research, she has received the ASAS Morrison Award, the ASAS Growth and Development Award, the ASN Stockstad Award, the University of Tennessee Centennial Leader Award, and the Baylor College of Medicine Research Mentor Award and is an ASAS Fellow.  

AMSA is an organization recognized for its unmatched competence and commitment to attracting and developing meat industry leaders and providing science-based meat research and information. For more information, please visit www.meatscience.org/rmc or contact Deidrea Mabry 1-800-517-AMSA ext. 12. 

Source: AMSA