Team:Cornell NY/Integrated Practices

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Practices

Where We've Been.

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Our Story.


Cornell iGEM’s multifaceted approach to tackling mastitis is innovative and different, and we know that we could not do this alone. We have spent each stage of our project visiting and interacting with experts in the field, making decisions carefully with the feedback of current dairy farmers in mind. We approached the project with human-centered design in three stages. First: inspiration. We derived our ideas from what the dairy industry lacked in the mastitis-prevention sector. Next: ideation. We sketched out prototypes and brought them to farmers. And finally: implementation. We created our product. And at this stage, we knew that what we had created would be useful, because it was, in essence, the farmer, who had directed us throughout the process.

Timeline: Inspiration Phase

Inspiration Strikes!


  • April 28, 2016

    ProDAIRY

    123 Lake St, Cooperstown, NY 13326

    We began our journey by speaking with Caroline Potter and Rob Lynch from ProDAIRY. ProDAIRY is a dairy-education organization in New York State aimed at connecting farmers and members of the agriculture business with valuable resources, research, and information in order to create strong businesses in the dairy industry. At ProDAIRY, we discovered that cows infected with mastitis must be taken out of the milking process and treated with antibiotics in quarantine. Even after a cow is cured, it has to be withheld from milking for several more days until its milk is antibiotic-free. The treatment process and loss of milk is very costly to the farmer, and Caroline and Rob emphasized the pervasiveness of mastitis in the dairy industry. Through our conversations we found out not only where our treatment and prevention efforts should be focused, but also how big an impact our project could make in the dairy industry.

  • May 6, 2016

    Snofarm

    665 Buffalo Rd, Brooktondale, NY 14817

    Next we visited Snofarm, a small dairy farm with 90 cows about an hour away from campus. The owner of the farm, who graduated from Cornell Vet School, strategically met with us during a milking shift at his farm to show us the milking process. Snofarm emphasized how the most intensive part of mastitis was disease prevention. Making sure the cows and their environment were clean is time consuming, but crucial to prevent mastitis. Because of Snofarm's size, antibiotics were a last resort for them, and they preferred helping the cow heal on its own.

  • May 7, 2016

    Vet Dairy Teaching Barn

    Shortly after, we visited Cornell's Vet Dairy Teaching Barn. Located close to campus, the Vet Dairy Teaching barn supplies milk and is often used for educational purposes and outreach events. We met with Charles, who showed us the milking process. He told us that mastitis is an “inevitable disease” and that “cows are at risk everyday, so [farmers] try to manage that risk.” He informed us about the methods that he uses to prevent and treat mastitis, and showed us the instruments used to inject antibiotics into a cow. After our talk with Charles, we decided that mastitis-prevention efforts were more important during the milking period than during the dry period. We saw that during milking, the first bit of milk from the teat is squirted onto the floor as a visual test for mastitis, and decided to create a more sophisticated method for mastitis detection.

  • May 13, 2016

    Zoetis

    100 Campus Dr, Florham Park, NJ 07932

    Throughout our process we wanted to work with farmers as well as researchers. Zoetis is one of world’s largest pharmaceutical companies that develops medicine and vaccines for animals. We reached out to Dr. Neubauer, who also happens to be president of the National Mastitis Council, to ask about collaboration opportunities. Dr. Neubauer arranged a call-in meeting to learn more about our project, and assisted the product development team with their milking device design.

  • May 13, 2016

    Quality Milk Production Services

    240 Farrier Rd, Ithaca, NY 14853

    Almost every research professor on campus that we reached out to directed us to the reigning milk quality expert, Dr. Daryl Nydam. Dr. Nydam works at Quality Milk Production Services (QMPS) located on Cornell’s campus, which serves all of New York State. QMPS is world-renowned for its diagnostic services, mastitis prevention programs, and educational assistance. Dr. Nydam gave us information about different types of mastitis-causing pathogens. Rare species are worth targeting because a single outbreak can quickly become detrimental. Infection by Gram-negative pathogens is common because they are found in abundance in the milking environment. Gram-positive pathogens are the most virulent and traditionally must be treated with antibiotics. Our wet lab team chose bacteriocins that would target a few species in each group for the most comprehensive treatment.

Timeline: Ideation Phase

Just from preliminary interviewing, we realized that there was a dire need for the prevention and detection of mastitis. Our wet lab team started work on a bacteriocin treatment, choosing genes based on Dr. Nydam's advice. Our product development team focused on the prevention of mastitis and narrowed their ideas down to a multi-purpose milking nozzle with interchangeable parts. Our CS/ECE subteam focused on the detection of mastitis, creating an app and a microscope attachment. We brought these sketches to experts in the ideation phase.

  • July 15, 2016

    Milkrite

    110 Lincoln St, Johnson Creek, WI 53038

    Milkrite, a division of Avon Rubber and Plastics, is the world’s largest provider of dairy rubber wear, with their core business focused on creating rubber liners used in milking machines. We reached out to Tom Votny, a representative of Milkrite. During our conversation, we learned about the current state of the milking machine market, what technologies have already been developed for milking shells and milking machine liners, how products are typically tested, and how large companies conduct their market research. These insights showed the product development team that their ideas for the milking shell were feasible and alerted them to the other considerations they would have to make in their design. We also learned that farmer feedback is absolutely essential to ensuring that our project as a whole succeeds in the market. We began contacting as many farms as we could to gather that feedback.

  • July 25, 2016

    Muranda Cheese Company

    3075 NY-96, Waterloo, NY 13165

    With product development's sketches for the milking shell and outlines for the CS iPhone app, we started a series of farm visits to gather the feedback that Milkrite had emphasized so strongly. We went to the Muranda Cheese Company in Waterloo, NY, and talked to Blane Murray. Blane told us that our project was especially valuable because it includes a preventative measure for mastitis. We showed him our proposed sketches for the customizable milking shell with various modules, and he indicated that the most useful modules would be the temperature sensor, UV light, iodine spray, and cooler. Blane said that our app would be more useful for bigger and more technologically advanced farms, and referred us to two more farms we could speak to. Blane also pointed out the importance of cost effectiveness. Farmers want to know that our device works, and whether they are going to get a return on their investment. With Blane's suggestions in mind, we went back to Ithaca to make improvements on our product idea and app.

  • July 28, 2016

    Quality Milk Production Services

    240 Farrier Rd, Ithaca, NY 14853

    Nearly two months after our first visit with Daryl Nydam of Quality Milk Production Services, we decided to talk to him again now that our ideas were more fleshed out. We talked to him about the progress of our bacteriocin research, and Dr. Nydam lent us a field guide for mastitis that gave us a solid foundation of how we should move forward with bacteriocin testing. He also agreed to provide us with infected milk samples that we could use as test targets, and genomic preps of Lactococcus lactis and Bacillus subtilis, two promising bacteriocins that required genes too large to synthesize.

    We then spoke to Dr. Nydam about the milking shell that we were developing for the milking machine to aid in the prevention of the disease. He particularly liked the iodine spray, UV light, and cold shock modules. He thought the idea of the cold shock was innovative, and suggested that we talk to more experts to see whether cold shock would be physiologically effective.

    We also spoke to Dr. Nydam about our ideas for the app. He recommended some academic literature that would help us with the economic analysis of treating or culling a cow. He was fascinated by the somatic cell counter and urged us to further pursue that option. While there are tests like the California Mastitis Test that already allow farmers to quickly detect mastitis, this new innovation could change the way the disease is approached and dealt with by farmers.

    Dr. Nydam praised us for choosing a project in the dairy industry because of the strong agricultural presence in New York, along with the connections that Cornell has. Overall, Dr. Nydam emphasized something that everyone we have met has said: farmers want ease and effectiveness. We kept that in mind through the rest of our project.

  • August 1, 2016

    Windstott Farm

    839 Indian Field Road, Genoa, NY 13071

    The first farm recommended to us by Blane Murray that we visited was Windstott Farm, located in Genoa, NY. This farm was unlike other farms that we had been to, because it was a robot farm, and we were beyond excited to gain a different perspective on the needs and processes carried out at traditional dairy farms. We spoke to Bill Kilcer, the owner. He implemented robotic milking machines around 7 years ago for his farm of 130 cows. Robot farms require very little human interaction - cows step into the machine as they need to, and sensors detect the teats before latching on. We watched the process and noticed that the iodine spray was automatically sprayed after milking, unlike other farms where a person had applied it manually. Bill told us that our idea of having a temperature sensor, flow rate sensor, iodine spray, and indicator as part of the shell was already incorporated into the robots. He also said that our app would not be as helpful for him because all the data that the milk samples are tested for, such as conductivity, temperature, and amount of fat and protein, is already stored into the computer. This valuable feedback made us realize that our idea would be most helpful for bigger traditional dairy farms.

  • August 2, 2016

    Scipio Springs Dairy

    2049 Mosher Rd, Union Springs, NY 13160

    We were thrilled to schedule our next farm visit to Scipio Springs Dairy in Scipio Center, NY because it was very different from the previous two farms that we had visited. Scipio Springs Dairy is a much larger farm with 800 cows and is set up like a traditional milking parlor, with 12 cows in parallel with one another. We met with Bill Morgan, who looks over the operations of the dairy farm, and the herd manager of the farm, allowing us to get a more well-rounded feedback on our wet lab, product development, and app components of our project. Bill was extremely interested in implementing bacteriocins on his farm instead of using traditional antibiotics. He was impressed by our modular idea for the shell because he believed that it was an all-encompassing prevention to mastitis. Bill believed that the UV light would be a great alternative to the traditional use of heat because heat changes the functionality of the proteins in the milk as well as the milk’s flavor. He also liked the idea of the temperature sensor because gram negative bacteria mastitis typically causes an increase in temperature. Using a temperature sensor would be better than the conventional way of finding out that the mastitis is caused by gram negative bacteria visually because by the time the cause is found, the damage to the cow and its milk is already done. Overall, Bill Morgan was supportive of our idea, and was interested in trying out our prototype and app once we finalized them.

  • August 4, 2016

    Dairy One Co-op Inc

    720 Warren Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850

    Dairy One is a dairy data management company that assists farmers in making decisions on their farms. Blane Murray from the Muranda Cheese Company uses Dairy One’s services, and referred us to the company. We spoke with John Tauzel and James Zimmermann primarily for feedback on our app. Dairy One supported the Somatic Cell Counter idea for its innovative idea and convenience. For the cost calculator, they noted that calculating the overall profit/loss of the farm rather than looking at individual cows would be more beneficial. They suggested that the cow data show the effectiveness of the farmer’s practices, so that the farmer can review productivity and make long term decisions.

Timeline - Implementation

Now, it was time to bring our sketches to life into products. We went back for our final farm visits with a physical prototype of the customizable shell in hand, along with a running app.

  • October 1, 2016

    Muranda Cheese Company

    Blane from the Muranda Cheese Company looked at our prototype and noted that the temperature sensor could be in the way if the teats are too close together. He suggested that we remove extraneous components on the outside of the shell that could be destroyed if the cow kicked. He also mentioned that we should try to get the modules inside the shell in a way that would not affect the liner.

  • October 1, 2016

    Scipio Springs Dairy

    2049 Mosher Rd, Union Springs, NY 13160

    Bill Morgan of Scipio Farm remembered our ideas from before and gave us a thorough analysis of what he thought of the various aspects of our project. He first gave his opinion on the milk shell. The iodine application through sponges and UV light between milkings of cows were both especially supported. They would both prevent the transfer of bacteria and hinder the growth of bacteria to begin with. The temperature sensor would be effective because a temperature change in an infected quarter of the udder is a common indicator of the occurrence of mastitis. Bill Morgan was overall very enthusiastic with our modified shell, and told us that many farmers including himself would invest in the purchase of a new device that would decrease the occurrence of mastitis. Usually, shells are a one-time purchase and only replaced when there is a better product in the market, which means that farmers would be willing to spend the money for an improvement of quality. Currently, shells range cost $40-$50, but Bill Morgan said he would spend $100-$200 for what we were offering, which would still be less than some other products on the market. This willingness comes from the fact that each case of mastitis could cost up to $300, and would permanently scar infected cows so that they would produce 10% less milk for the remaining duration of their milking days. Any way to decrease mastitis is therefore looked upon favorably. In addition, since he is able to identify the strain of bacteria for each case causing mastitis on his farm using a special plate, choosing a specific bacteriocin for treatment is better than traditional antibiotics. He also said that the microscope and app we were designing would be either more convenient or less costly than current management techniques for mastitis.