Hasan Khatib, a professor of animal and dairy sciences, received USDA-NIFA funding for his project The impact of the combined maternal and paternal nutrition on offspring phenotypes in sheep through the the Animal Nutrition, Growth and Lactation program. It was among 27 projects sharing $11.4 million in funding.

Project summary (from CRIS website): This proposal aims to fill a gap in understanding how both parents’ diets affect the health, productivity, and reproduction of their offspring, along with the underlying epigenetic processes. The first part involves studying how the combined diets of both parents impact future generations. Specifically, we will provide methionine supplements to male and female sheep before breeding and then observe the traits of their offspring over multiple generations. We will also investigate how the fathers’ diets influence traits through changes in sperm DNA. The second part focuses on the effects of the mothers’ diet on oocytes and embryos. We expect that supplementing methionine to ewes during conception will alter the genetic makeup of the eggs and embryos, affecting the development of the offspring. This research will help us understand how nutrition before pregnancy shapes the growth and performance of the offspring.