2024 September Board Book

IMGC MAKES A BIG SPLASH! GOING INTO 20TH YEAR

Project Lead: Dr. Carl Whithaus, UC Davis

SPLASH! Milk Science Update is a bimonthly e-newsletter produced by the International Milk Genomics Consortium (IMGC). Since its inception in 2012, SPLASH! has served an integral role for the IMGC by translating important scientific findings in a public venue and promoting multidisciplinary work that accelerates scientific progress. Each issue highlights the best of new milk science research in a way that is accessible to non-specialists, and informative for academics and industry professionals. There are over 25,000 scientific articles published each year that include the keyword “milk.” Rather than read through nearly 70 articles every day, academic research ers, medical professionals, and dairy industry experts turn to SPLASH! to stay up to date with the most important topics in milk science and human health. Under the leadership of the Director of the UCD Writing Program Dr. Carl Whithaus and Executive Editor Dr. Danielle Lemay, SPLASH! now has a searchable archive of more than 400 articles read annually by more than 200,000 readers worldwide. Each e-newsletter features four compelling articles that identify and contextualize the most important research findings related to milk. Highlights from 2023 articles include coverage of links between dairy consumption and improved mental health, the potential of high-pres sure processing methods for preserving milk proteins while inactivating pathogens, the long-lasting nature of milk antibodies directed at SARS-CoV-2, and an associa tion between reduced fracture risk and milk consumption among women. In addition to the 24 engaging articles published in 2023, the IMGC added a new event in the spring of 2023 called the ROS (roll up our sleeves) workshop. The virtual ROS workshops focus on translational issues in milk science. The workshops are free to attend. THE SPLASH! E-NEWSLETTER IS READ BY OVER 200K WORLDWIDE. 2024 IMGC SYMPOSIUM WILL BE HELD LOCALLY IN DAVIS, CA, AS IMGC CELEBRATES 20TH YEAR.

The 2023 IMGC Annual Symposium was held in Cork, Ireland and attended by more than 200 in-person and virtual attendees from around the world. The annual symposium brings together international experts in lactation, milk science, nutrition, genomics, and more to discuss the outcomes and implications of the latest discoveries in scientific research for human health. In 2024, the IMGC Annual Symposium will return to Davis, CA (Oct. 22-24). “I adapted our symposium to enable it to thrive despite shocks and emergencies, like the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Jennifer Smilowitz, IMGC’s Director of Scientific and Strategic Development. Case in point, this year’s Symposium event will once again be a hybrid conference and welcome both in-person and virtual attendees. “Having a hybrid model continues to triple our attendee rate relative to the pre-2020 years,” explains Smilowitz, who also shared that “virtual access to the symposium is free for students to help bring future scientists to the IMGC family.”

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