Undergraduate Research Scholar Erika Pearsall: Making an Impact on the Dairy Industry 

Graduate student Erika Pearsall wants to make a long-term impact on the dairy industry. Her studies in bovine reproduction as an Undergraduate Research Scholar, in the Department of Animal Sciences, aim to help both people and cattle in the long-term.  

“I’m passionate about agriculture. Without agriculture, we would be starving and wouldn’t have clothes, so agriculture is very important to human life,” said Pearsall, who earned her bachelor’s degree from N.C. A&T in 2023.  “I like how animal and human health correlate with each other through similar biological factors.”  

For her project, Pearsall and her mentor, bovine specialist Lauren Mayo, Ph.D., studied the effects of mushroom extract on oocyte maturation, in which the egg is prepared for fertilization, as well as eventual embryo development. An oocyte is the term for an immature egg cell involved in reproduction.  

“We chose this project because mushroom substrate (the hydrated substance that provides nutrients and physical support for mushrooms development) is currently being fed to our beef and dairy herd,” said Pearsall. “We know that mushroom extract has growing properties and can have a great effect on reproductive performance. Another professor at the college was looking at the fatty acid profile in milk after feeding mushroom substrate to the cows and how (the substrate) affected their milk. So, we wanted to learn how feeding the cows a non-toxic dose of mushroom substrate could affect oocyte maturation in a lab setting.”  

The first step, according to Pearsall, was obtaining ovaries from a local packing plant. Then, after washing the ovaries in sterile saline, they aspirated each follicle on the ovary, searching the follicular fluid for good-quality oocytes.   

“We transferred the good oocytes to bovine IVM (in vitro maturation) within their respective concentrations: control, an undiluted mushroom 1:1 extract, and a diluted mushroom 1:1000 extract,” said Pearsall. “They incubated for 24 hours, then we stained them for lipid content and nuclear maturation (the process that prepares the egg for maturation) and viewed them under a microscope.” 

Within this process, Pearsall found that the 1:1 concentration not only had more lipid abundance, but did not have a compacted chromatin, meaning that the oocytes were not able to fully mature for a proper reproductive cycle. By contrast, the 1:1000 had fewer lipids and was deemed a “less toxic” substrate, which would comparatively allow the oocyte to mature properly for reproduction.  

“For further research, we want to bring that concentration down to 1:100 or 1:10 and see if that will help with the amount of lipids introduced,” said Pearsall.  

Pearsall credits her coursework and hands-on training in livestock handling, housing, and feed for much of her research’s success. She also credits Mayo and the time she spent in her lab.  

“I think Dr. Mayo and I have a great student-advisor relationship,” said Pearsall. “I started out as a volunteer in her lab, and over the years she’s learned what buttons to push to move me forward and past my limits.”  

“Erica is one of the students that really takes an initiative to do things, and ask, ‘Why?’ “ Mayo said. “In the beginning, she came and approached me about taking my dairy cattle production class, and by the time she applied to be an Undergraduate Research Scholar her junior year, she’d been involved with so many different projects that she was an active part or member of the lab already.”  

Now a master’s degree student in the department, Pearsall is planning an academic career.   

“I want to receive my Ph.D., run my own lab, and teach students,” she said. “I want to continue studying bovine reproduction, specifically how heat stress and nutrition affect sperm and oocyte quality.”