Center for Precision Nutrition and Health Newsletter #1
Welcome to the first newsletter of the Center for Precision Nutrition and Health at Cornell University. CPNH was established with the generous support of Dean Rachel Dunifon and the College of Human Ecology. The vision of the center is to enable last mile efforts that are needed to rapidly and rigorously translate scientific evidence and innovations that enable precision nutrition and health from the academic setting to those who need and use it - consumers, policy makers, industry, governmental and non-governmental agencies. We have described some of our work during this first year, including key publications, outreach efforts, and funding successes in the text below. We will periodically share these developments from CPNH as well as latest news and events in the area of precision nutrition and health.
We are incredibly grateful to Joan and Irwin Jacobs for their $10 million commitment to the College of Human Ecology to directly support the Center’s mission and activities.
We wish you a new year filled with good health, joy and peace!
Sincerely, Saurabh, Pat, Julia, David, and the CPNH Team
Publications
Papers supporting last mile work for food-based interventions and biofortification
A suite of reviews with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to guide global adoption and scale up of biofortified crops by countries, including a recent paper in Nature Food: A systematic review of the impacts of post-harvest handling on provitamin A, iron and zinc retention in seven biofortified crops.
Research briefing in Nature Food highlighting our dashboard described below: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00887-7
Commentary in the Lancet: Food: the tuberculosis vaccine we already have, highlighted by Lancet Editorial Team as a recommendation for national programs and donors to focus their efforts on as a key strategy to address Tuberculosis.
Innovations
New Dashboards and Large Language Models to democratize data access
CPNH recently launched a new online, interactive Micronutrient Retention Dashboard. Based on work by Huey et al. in Nature Food, this represents the first publicly available searchable database showing how the micronutrient content of various foods are affected by post-harvest handling. This novel dashboard will help guide evidence-based policy and action.
The Micronutrient Retention large-language model (LLM) is a collaborative project with Fei Wang and Xingbo Wang at Weill Cornell Medicine that allows you to chat with the micronutrient retention dataset, to ask questions using natural language prompts, such as “What is this data about?”, “What is the iron retention of beans after boiling?” Screenshots showing how the LLM works are below.
New Grants
New Training Grant
CPNH is the home of a new NIH training grant focused on Artificial Intelligence and Precision Nutrition, the first of its kind in the US. This unique program requires dual mentorship and we are looking forward to welcoming the first cohort of pre- and post-doctoral trainees in January 2024. More details are at cpnh.cornell.edu/t32.
New Center Grant
CPNH is also happy to announce a new NIH center grant - PORTENT (Point-of-care Diagnostics for Global Health) with partners across four continents led by CPNH co-director David Erickson along with Saurabh Mehta. The vision of this new grant aligns with CPNH’s mission of accelerating latest technologies through the last mile, and PORTENT will develop, validate and scale-up innovative point-of-care technology that will address the needs of the most vulnerable in the US and internationally. Cornell Chronicle article detailing this effort is at https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/09/nih-grant-launch-center-diagnostics-improve-global-health.
Other CPNH Highlights
NIH BOND-KIDS Project
CPNH is continuously engaged with key last-mile work that will have a global impact. Dr. Mehta chairs the working group on nutritional assessment of the NIH BOND-KIDS Project, which aims to guide school feeding programs in the US and globally.
To support this work, we have created a pilot version of the BOND-KIDS Dashboard, which is live, with this screenshot showing how to navigate (please note that the content does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) or the National Institutes of Health).
The BOND-KIDS project webinar, including a presentation by CPNH Director Saurabh Mehta and hosted on behalf of the U.S. Government Global Nutrition Coordination Plan, presents Phase I results and discussions on integrating these findings into Phase II.
Training
The WHO/Cochrane/Cornell Summer Institute directed by CPNH co-director Patricia Cassano was held in person on campus in July 2023, training participants in the development of systematic reviews of nutrition interventions. Since 2014 the Institute has trained over 140 participants from 25 countries. The Institute is part of Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Science’s renewed collaboration with the World Health Organization to serve as a Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/WHO Collaborating Centre on Nutrition Research for Health – and is the the only such center in the U.S. dedicated to nutrition issues.
Symposia
Nearly 100 faculty members, graduate and postdoctoral trainees and staff from Cornell's Ithaca Campus and Weill Cornell Medical College gathered for an inaugural intercampus symposium, Metabolic Health: From molecules to populations, co-sponsored by CPNH. The symposium was held in Ithaca, NY, September 11-12, 2023, co-chaired by CPNH co-director Julia Finkelstein, ScD, and Laura Alonso, MD, and is part of the Center’s commitment to developing partnerships to advance collaborative research and training opportunities in nutrition and health. The symposium focused on three topics: diabetes at the molecular and cellular level, obesity and the biology of fat cells, and population-level obesity interventions. Summary of conference proceedings will be published soon.
Upcoming work and development
Joan Klein Jacobs Faculty Innovation Fund (initially supported by CHE) -will provide seed funding for projects focused on AI and precision nutrition to catalyze partnerships across campus and with outside collaborators. Request For Applications coming soon!
Co-Sponsored Symposia in September 2024 with Weill Cornell Medicine - one on maternal and child health (jointly led by CPNH co-director Finkelstein), and one on cancer and social equity (co-led by Mehta)
CPNH In the News
NIH funds cross-campus effort to train experts in AI and nutrition
The BOND-KIDS Project: Exploring the Nutritional Ecology of School-Aged Children Webinar
NIH grant to launch center for diagnostics to improve global health
Cornell to co-lead NIH center for precision nutrition research
Other Precision Nutrition and Health News
Fothergill A, Crider KS, Rose CE, Bose B, Guetterman HM, Johnson CB, Jabbar S, Zhang M, Pfeiffer CM, Qi YP, Williams JL, Kuriyan R, Bonam W, Finkelstein JL. Estimating the serum folate concentration that corresponds to the red blood cell folate concentration threshold associated with optimal neural tube defects prevention: A population-based biomarker survey in Southern India. Am J Clin Nutr. 2023 May;117(5):985-997. doi: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.01.016. Epub 2023 Apr 19. PMID: 37137617; PMCID: PMC10356561.
Srinivasan B, Li W, Ruth CJ, Herrman TJ, Erickson D, Mehta S. Rapid quantification of aflatoxin in food at the point of need: A monitoring tool for food systems dashboards. Current Research in Biotechnology. Volume 6, 2023, 100153,ISSN 2590-2628. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crbiot.2023.100153.
Kohlmeier M. One size does not fit all: on the need for categorical stratification in nutrition science, practice and policy. BMJ Nutr Prev Health. 2023 Jan 2;6(1):1-3. doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2022-000603. PMID: 37559959; PMCID: PMC10407395.
Zoh RS, Esteves BH, Yu X, Fairchild AJ, Vazquez AI, Chapple AG, Brown AW, George B, Gordon D, Landsittel D, Gadbury GL, Pavela G, de Los Campos G, Mestre LM, Allison DB. Design, analysis, and interpretation of treatment response heterogeneity in personalized nutrition and obesity treatment research. Obes Rev. 2023 Sep 4:e13635. doi: 10.1111/obr.13635. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37667550.
Bailey RL, Stover PJ. Precision Nutrition: The Hype Is Exceeding the Science and Evidentiary Standards Needed to Inform Public Health Recommendations for Prevention of Chronic Disease. Annu Rev Nutr. 2023 Aug 21;43:385-407. doi: 10.1146/annurev-nutr-061021-025153. PMID: 37603433.
An Ecological Approach for Advancing the Understanding of Nutrition and Health
Raiten DJ, Bremer AA. An Ecological Approach for Advancing the Understanding of Nutrition and Health. JAMA Pediatr. 2023 Aug 1;177(8):748-750. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.1613. PMID: 37306982.
