All the best insights from ISEP 2022!

(ISEP) The International Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition 

The 7th European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP) Symposium on Energy and Protein Metabolism and Nutrition (ISEP 2022) was held from September 12 to 15 in Granada, Spain. This meeting is organized every three years around the world in collaboration with other Animal Science Associations. ISEP inherited the previous symposiums that focused either only on Energy or Protein since 1958. The first ISEP was held in Rostock, Germany, in 2003. Since then, Symposiums have been held in Vichy, France; Parma, Italy; Sacramento, USA; Krakow, Poland; and Belo Horizonte, Brazil.  

Several Spanish Scientists from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Professors, and Students from the University of Granada were involved in the Organization of this event. Dr. Ignacio Fernández-Fígares from the CSIC was the head of this Organizing Committee. There were over 300 registrations from 28 countries on five continents. Participants came from Spain (32%), the USA (13%), France (10%), The Netherlands (6%), Canada (5%), Germany (5%), and other countries (29%). Only 21% of the participants were students, and 79% were professionals, with 28% of registrations sponsored directly by multinational companies related to animal nutrition. Additionally, to the great experience of visiting historic Granada, a crossroad of civilizations since the bronze age, the program allowed interaction among scientists to foster future collaborations. 

A course on Indirect Calorimetry and selected applications was offered. This time Wageningen University (The Netherlands) and INRAE (Rennes, France) jointly organize this workshop. The course aims at educating those (PhD students, technical staff, researchers) who use measurements of gaseous exchange ( CO₂, O₂, CH₄.) in their research program and are setting up facilities in which those measures can be performed, either with or without climate control. 

The ISEP Symposium is one of the most important forums to discuss the latest trends in energy and metabolism, and nutrition of farm animals, and other nutrition-related disciplines. Like on previous occasions, this was a very fruitful event. The meeting was structured on seven topics: protein and energy metabolism in ruminants; non-ruminants; feed processing, additives, and novel feeds; reduction of the environmental impact of livestock; the impact of environmental challenges on livestock; methodological aspects of research and smart nutrition; and modeling.

Lectures by prestigious scientists opened each one of the seven sessions. Additionally, information about the metabolism of protein, amino acids, and energy for monogastric species and ruminants was also presented as posters. These posters included communications related to research results on nutrition, metabolism, environmental impact, modeling, and data analysis on swine, poultry, fish, horses, dogs, and cats. In ruminants, the posters had information on diverse species like beef and dairy cattle, goats, and sheep. 

For the first time the Rank Lecture in Animal Nutrition was awarded to Dr. Christiane L. Girard from the Centre de recherche et développement de Sherbrooke, in Québec, Canada. Dr. Girard presented the State of knowledge on the importance of folates and cobalamin for dairy cow metabolism. Girard’s past research has enlightened the understanding of how vitamins can modify rumen microbiota metabolism and enhance dairy cow performance. NutriNews International interviewed Dr. Girard during the event.

Dr. Hélène Lapierre from Agriculture and Agri-Food, Canada, presented the main lecture on protein and energy metabolism in ruminants. Her talk was entitled the multiple usages of the efficiency of utilization of essential amino acids in dairy cows. In non-ruminants, Jan Erik Lindberg from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences presented Nutrient and energy supply in monogastric food-producing animals with reduced environmental and climatic footprint. Dr. Diego Morgavi from INRAE Centre Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France, presented an additional lecture on this topic about how Reducing enteric methane emissions improves energy metabolism in livestock. 

In the Feed processing, additives, and novel feed, the main lecture was on the Composition and utilization of animal diets in the context of circular food production systems, presented by Dr. Paul Bikker of Wageningen Livestock Research, Netherlands. 

The opening lecture for the topic impact of heat stress and other environmental challenges on energy and protein metabolism was the physiological impact of amino acid supply during heat stress in ruminants, presented by Dr. Juan J. Loor from the University of Illinois, USA. 

In Methods and technologies for research and smart nutrition, Dr. Cornelia C. Metges had the main lecture: Methods and biomarkers to investigate metabolic and gut health and function in pigs. Finally, Dr. Luis Tedeschi from Texas A&M discoursed Harnessing extant modeling approaches for sustainable animal production in the final topic on Modelling energy and protein requirements of farm animals.

NutriNews interviewed several scientists during ISEP about their presentations in this meeting. Dr. Craig Coon is a well-renowned poultry nutrition Professor at the University of Arkansas that came to present his long-term research developing a new Net Energy system that he calls Productive Energy because it takes into consideration the metabolic impact of high protein intake in broilers and fast-growing birds. Dr. Ana García is the Director of the Trouw Poultry Research Center in Toledo, Spain. Together with her colleague Dr. Wilfredo Mansilla we discussed the interesting, diverse research in poultry nutrition that they developed in that Center.  

Dr. Walter Gerrits is a professor and chairholder of the Animal Nutrition Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. We chat about his work, mainly on gas emissions in grazing cows and how they fit with energy metabolism. Dr. Gerrits delivered several talks in this meeting and coordinated the Course on Indirect Calorimeter.  

We also talked with Dr. Aline Remus research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Aline discussed her research to understand the variability of nutrient utilization in swine.

With Dr. Vanessa Lagos from Schothorst Feed Research in the Netherlands, we talked about her job at this prestigious company dedicated to research and education in poultry, swine, and ruminants. Dr. Luciano Hauschild, a professor and the State University of Sao Paulo in Jaboticabal, Brazil, highlighted his research in amino acid metabolism in pigs and his modeling work. Finally, Dr. Jaap Van Milgen, a well-known Research Scientist at INRAE, discussed his presentation about the current status of food-animal research in Europe, the challenges that will face, and the perspective that the groups he leads have in this respect. You can find all these interviews on our web:

The next ISEP meeting will be held in Rostock, Germany, in 2025. We hope this publication contributes to increasing the interest of applied nutritionists to seek and obtain the most updated information on nutrition in this meeting.

Source: This report was written by Edgar O. Oviedo-Rondón. Co-corresponding author for NutriNews International. Professor of Broiler Nutrition and Management at the Prestage Department of Poultry Science, North Carolina State University.