KANNAPOLIS , N.C. (WBTV) – According to a press release, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $19.2 million 5-year grant, pending the availability of funds, to a consortium of North Carolina university researchers who will apply cutting-edge analytical techniques to nutrition research. The team will be led by Susan Jenkins Sumner, PhD, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute (UNC NRI), located on the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in Kannapolis.
The Sumner team award will fund the Metabolomics and Clinical Assays Center for the NIH Common Fund’s Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program (NPH), to inform more personalized nutrition recommendations.
Overall, NIH has awarded approximately $170 million dollars over five years, pending availability of funds, to clinical sites and data generation, technology, and analysis centers across the United States. One of the clinical sites will be led by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, chair of the Department of Nutrition. This site will engage communities surrounding the Chapel Hill and Kannapolis areas to participate in determining optimal nutrition for precision health.
The team award involves researchers co-located on the NCRC from UNC NRI, North Carolina State University, and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, as well as collaborators at the McLendon Clinical Laboratories at UNC School of Medicine, and the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Duke School of Medicine. The researchers will employ a unique suite of capabilities and broad experiences in the burgeoning field of “metabolomics,” which will be applied to derive a deeper understanding of the impact of nutrition on the chemistry of the human body. This award exemplifies the value of collaboration across public and private universities within North Carolina.
Sumner, the grant’s principal investigator, emphasizes the significance of strong community partnerships and collaboration among the NPH study to inform personalized nutrition needs in North Carolina and across our country. “My family comes from the Stanly, Rowan, Montgomery, and Cabarrus counties of North Carolina for many generations, so I am particularly excited about the opportunity for my own laboratory and the NRI to serve and engage our community in ways that will help to improve nutrition for future generations in North Carolina,” said Sumner. “We know that individuals respond differently to dietary intake, and our center will use advanced technologies to reveal new biomarkers of dietary intake and determine links between an individual’s response to dietary intake and health. An overall goal of our work and the NIH NPH study will be to inform the development of personalized nutrition for individuals in NC and across the United States.” The Sumner team is supported by the NIH Common Fund’s Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program grant U24 CA268153-01.
Investigators in the Metabolomics and Clinical Assays Center include:
To learn more about the Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program, view the informational video here.
All of Us and Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program are service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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