Michelle Mcconnell
Professor
Microbiology & Immunology
Otago University
New Zealand
Biography
Dr McConnell is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Current research in her group, as part of a wider Ag Research MBIE funded project (with Aladin Bekhit Food Science and Alan Carne Biochemistry), is primarily centered on the immunomodulatory effects of sheep milk in comparison with cow and goat milk, along with the microbiological status of the sheep milk. The sheep industry is a relatively young industry in New Zealand and the milk is predominantly used for cheese making in addition to some baby formula for the Chinese market. As part of the project she is co-supervising a PhD student Keegan Burrow from the Food Science Department who is investigating the bioavailability of minerals in sheep milk.
Research Interest
Applied immunology, medical microbiology, microbial pathogenesis
Publications
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K. Ryder, A. Bekhit, M. McConnell and A. Carne Towards generation of bioactive peptides from meat industry waste proteins: generation of peptides using commercial microbial proteases Food Chemistry 208:42-50 (2016)
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Mros Sonya, Carne Alan, Ha Minh, Bekhit AlaaEl-Din, Young Wayne, McConnell Michelle (2017) Comparison of the bioactivity of whole and skimmed digested sheep milk with that of digested goat and cow milk in functional cell culture assays. Small Ruminant Research http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2017.02.018
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Jade Chia, Keegan Burrow, Alan Carne, Michelle McConnell, Linda Samuelsson, Li Day,Wayne Young, Alaa El-Din Ahmed Bekhit (2017). “Minerals in Sheep milk†in “Nutrients in Dairy and Their Implications on Health and Disease†Edited by: Ronald Ross Watson, Robert J. Collier, and Victor Preedy, Elsevier Publishing. Chapter 27 p 345- 362
