The Meat Sciences program in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois is a program broad in scope, but collaborative in nature. The program encompasses four professors, eight to 10 graduate students and a meat lab manager.
Faculty, researchers and students in the program engage in basic and applied research as well as extension and outreach to state, national, and international components of the meat industry. From a research prospective, researchers are interested in the whole of meat science and muscle biology spanning from the regulation of animal growth and development, technologies to improve animal production and efficiency, carcass yield and quality, and aspects of further processing. The four meat science and muscle biology professors each have their own interests and specialties but work together to address research questions.