Katie Hinde and Lauren Milligan are awesome!

Hurry for Dr. Katie Hinde (University of California Davis) and Dr. Lauren Milligan (University of California Berkeley! Their new article in Evolutionary Anthropology, titled "Primate milk: Proximate mechanisms and ultimate perspectives" is a brilliant review of lactation and milk synthesis in the primates, setting a new bar for evolutionarily driven milk research and exploration of the role of early life nutritional environments in the evolution of life histories. Elegant!

Abstract:
To understand the evolutionary forces that have shaped primate lactation strategies, it is important to understand the proximate mechanisms of milk synthesis and their ecological and phylogenetic contexts. The lactation strategy of a species has four interrelated dimensions: the frequency and duration of nursing bouts, the period of lactation until weaning, the number and sex ratio of infants that a mother rears simultaneously, and the composition and yield of the milk that mothers synthesize. Milk synthesis, arguably the most physiologically costly component of rearing infants, remains the least studied. Energy transfer becomes energetically less efficient, transitioning from placental support to milk synthesis1, 2 just as the energy requirements for infant growth, development, and behavioral activity substantially increase. Here we review primate lactation biology and milk synthesis, integrating studies from anthropology, biology, nutrition, animal science, immunology, and biochemistry, to identify the derived and ancestral features of primate milks and enhance our understanding of primate life history.

Katie Hinde and Erin Sullivan are both awesome!

A recent Nature Outlook commentary summarized some cutting edge research in milk composition and lactational programming. Though not mentioned by name, the work of Drs. Katie Hinde and Erin Sullivan is highlighted:
"In rhesus macaques, sons drink milk with a higher concentration of cortisol, a hormone that modulates metabolism, even though their mothers have no more cortisol circulating in their blood than when nursing a daughter. It is unclear whether this cortisol-related sex difference has a function. But there are clues: young male macaques that consume milk containing high levels of the hormone develop bold behaviour, whereas cortisol in milk appears to have no influence on female macaque infants. Whether this has a parallel in humans is yet to be determined."

Dr. Hinde also recently published a paper (early view at Journal of Medical Primatology) with Dr. Lin Tao, a colleague of mine at the College of Dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago: Species diversity and relative abundance of lactic acid bacteria in the milk of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

BANDIT member Dr. Katie Hinde in American Journal of Primatology

Dr. Katie Hinde, currently a postdoc at the California National Primate Research Center and the University of California Davis has a paper out in AJP today. In addition to her impressive moves on the dance floor, Katie is doing some fabulous work on the role of lactation and milk composition in intergenerational programming of temperament in macaques. She's that cool.