COLLEGE STATION Dr. Stephen Smith’s lab in the department of animal science at Texas A&M University has been dedicated as an Overseas Laboratory for the National Livestock Research Institute in Korea.
Smith is a professor of animal science with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. His research focuses on beef cattle and swine growth and development, molecular biology and genetics particularly as these factors relate to meat.
His lab will be used for collaborative research between Texas A&M and the Korean research institute. Smith will host several visiting researchers from Korea in the next several years.
“The institute wants to increase the visibility of their research programs by teaming with livestock production scientists in the U.S.,” Smith said. “It is prohibitively expensive to do large scale animal research in Korea, so that country benefits by collaborating with any laboratory that shares common goals with their programs.”
The scientists at the National Livestock Research Institute are trying to support beef production in Korea, he said.
“They want to position themselves for export markets,” he said. “They specifically want to increase the palatability as well as healthfulness of their beef.”
One of the collaborative studies will focus on the source of marbling adipocytes cells stored in adipose tissue which specialize in storing energy as fat in American and Korean beef cattle. The cell culture study will occur concurrently in Smith’s and the Korean labs.
Another study which will be conducted primarily in Smith’s lab will attempt to document the effects of animal age and diet on the healthfulness and palatability of beef.
While Smith will not personally do research in Korea, one of his students will travel to Korea for eight weeks this summer. She will be doing cell culture research.
Smith has studied beef cattle production in Korea and Japan. In 2005, he was appointed as Honorary Scientist for the Korean research institute.
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