Dialogue Laboratory: research and experimenting in decision-making

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A year ago, ten experts from different fields participated in training of dialogue skills at the Aretai Dialogue Academy. After the 4-month-long training, we felt we were on to something and decided to keep meeting and sparring one another in using dialogue as a tool in our work lives.

Eventually, we decided we wanted to do more. The idea of “Dialogue Laboratory” was born.

Dialogue Laboratory is a way for us to continue learning the principles of dialogue while, at the same time, offering a time, place, and facilitation for visiting experts to discuss important phenomena. We organise these events every few months, and the theme for the first one was “Research and experimenting in decision-making”. Our first guests were Elina Nikkola from the Knowledge and Research Unit at the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture and Virve Hokkanen from the Experimenting Finland project at the Prime Minister’s Office.

You can read the whole story (in Finnish) here!

REPRODUCTION RESEARCH SERVES BOTH ANIMAL WELFARE AND BUSINESS

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Interview with professor Olli Peltoniemi, Department of Production Animal Medicine, vice-dean for research, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

What kind of research do you do?

“Looking at the last 10-15 years, our group’s main focus has been on mammal parturition (birth) and the physiology related to it. We are looking at the biology of fertilization and embryo development and all that follows, the birth and early lactation”, professor Olli Peltoniemi, vice-dean of the faculty, explains over morning coffee in the Viikki EE-building restaurant.

Most of the team’s projects are about pigs. “They are just so interesting and dynamic from the point of view of reproduction physiology”, Peltoniemi smiles.  And indeed, so they are. Among mammals, pigs reproduce efficiently. They have a high rate of success in many ways: they bear a high number of piglets in a litter that usually survive well. However, with purposeful breeding also problems have arisen. As many as 30% of the embryos are now lost in the uterus. During parturition, losing one fetus during the process of birth and one over the next few days is typical. “Our team looks at the reasons for these losses. We also aim to influence the immunology of the newly born piglets.”

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Crowdsourcing and business collaboration helped in collection of research material

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One of the most time-demanding steps of research project is collecting the research material. Occasionally, however, it is possible to co-operate with a corporate partner which can arrange the collection smoothly. One such example is the alliance professor Olli Vapalahti and Archipelago Doctors (Saaristolääkärit) formed a few years ago.

Archipelago Doctors Ltd is a company operating a minibus circulating in coastal Finland and providing medical services, e.g. vaccinations.  Customers have got increasingly interested in vaccination against TBE, tick borne encephalitis virus, as the virus has become more common. In 2017, 82 people in Finland were infected.

The tick bus (Punkkibussi) parked close to the entrance of a big shopping mall. Citizens walk in to get vaccinations and deliver tick samples both from humans and animals.

 

In summer of 2017 Dr. Olli Vapalahti’s research group launched together with the Archipelago Doctors a crowdsourcing-based project encouraging residents of Espoo and Lauttasaari to collect ticks and bring them to the TBE bus. The ticks, no matter if they originated from nature, human skin or animal fur, were all frozen and delivered to Vapalahti’s laboratory to be further examined.

During the summer season altogether 665 ticks from Espoo and 88 from neighboring Lauttasaari were studied. About 10 % were infected with TBE. At present Vapalahti is preparing a scientific paper together with the Archipelago Doctors. Thanks to university – company partnership, the citizens now know which areas are infected with the pathogen. Whether the people avoid these areas or take the vaccination is their own decision.

One of the tick samples from Siberian cat Amur was found to be TBE positive. Veterinarian Lauri Kareinen took a blood sample from the cat in order to study the virus antibodies.

 

 

Companies should get to see the benefits of research!

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Interview with Mari Nevas, Head of Department, University Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Food Hygiene and Environmental Health 

Mari’s research is based on evaluating  food control measures, which are the actions taken by the food control authorities to make sure that the  food business operators (FBOs) are fulfilling the requirements set by legislation to reduce and eliminate food associated risks. These measures involve all stages in the food chain; primary production, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, and retail. This type of research requires close collaboration with both private and public organizations working in the field of food business. Mari is also conducting research on other fields related to control performed by veterinarians, e.g. animal welfare control or the ways of using antimicrobials on food production animals.

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