Profile

My main research area is muscle development and growth both pre- and postnatal in relation to meat quality and carcass composition mainly in pigs.

One of my focus areas is muscle development during foetal life (myogenesis) and the regulation of myogenesis by maternal feeding. Also, the importance of maternal feeding for postnatal growth, meat quality characteristics and later health in the offspring is being studied in pigs. Intra-litter variation in muscle development and growth is being studied, in order to get a better understanding of the differences that develop between littermates during foetal life, and how this affect postnatal growth and meat quality. An understanding of the causes of intra-litter variation may be the first step towards decreasing intra-litter variation in growth rate and thereby meat quality.

Another topic for my research interest is the growth of muscle and fat tissue during postnatal life, and how this affects final meat quality and carcass composition. Carcass composition and carcass classification is studied by CT-scanning.