Joe Ford

Research conducted by Dr. Ford focuses on genetic variation in testicular development of boars with the goal of developing technology to reduce the number of boars that are required to supply semen for the U.S. swine industry. Studies into factors that signal the onset of Sertoli cell differentiation seek to determine how such changes during pubertal development can be used to predict a boar’s potential for sperm production at adulthood. Other studies target means to identify boars with the best potential for sustained fertility of sperm storage either at cooled temperatures or frozen. Successful completion of this research will increase production efficiency of swine.