PhD position: Sustainable control of the bacterial quality of goat milk through understanding of the milk microbiome (1,0 fte)

A low total bacterial count (TBC) is one of the major quality criteria of raw goat milk. We seek a PhD candidate for a collaborative project aiming to identify the determinants of high TBC and to understand mechanisms leading to excretion of high numbers of bacteria with milk. One of the mechanisms that has recently been hypothesized is the entero-mammary pathway (EMP), an active transfer of bacteria from the gut to the milk by mononuclear immune cells. Understanding and controlling the EMP through feed or other sustainable interventions will be central in this PhD project.

The candidate will be based at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University and will partly work at Wageningen BioVeterinary Research of Wageningen UR.