DR. DAN COLUMBUS – 2019 CSAS YOUNG SCIENTIST AWARD

Jul 17, 2019

Dr. Daniel Columbus is a Research Scientist in Nutrition at Prairie Swine Centre and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Columbus completed his BSc, MSc, and PhD from the University of Guelph in 2004, 2008, and 2012, respectively. He then completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine. He joined the Prairie Swine Centre in 2015 and became Research Scientist in 2016. Dr. Columbus’ research focuses on the interaction of nutrition and health and nutrient utilization in swine and he has secured more than $4 million in research funding as PI and Co-I. His research is supported by NSERC, the Government of Saskatchewan, Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, and Swine Innovation Porc – Canadian Agricultural Partnership, among other agencies and industry sponsors. He currently serves as Western Director for the Canadian Society of Animal Science and as reviewer for several journals, including Journal of Animal Science and The Journal of Nutrition, and as Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Animal Science.

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Video: Four Star Pork Industry Conf - Back to Basics: Fundamentals drive vaccine performance

At a time when disease pressure continues to challenge pork production systems across the United States, vaccination remains one of the most valuable and heavily debated tools available to veterinarians and producers.

Speaking at the 2025 Four Star Pork Industry Conference in Muncie, Indiana, Dr. Daniel Gascho, veterinarian at Four Star Veterinary Service, encouraged the industry to return to fundamentals in how vaccines are selected, handled and administered across sow farms, gilt development units and grow-finish operations.

Gascho acknowledged at the outset that vaccination can quickly become a technical and sometimes tedious topic. But he said that real-world execution, not complex immunology, is where most vaccine failures occur.