FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE: - NZIFST - The New Zealand Institute of ...

The University of AucklandFood and Health ProgrammeAn interdisciplinary programme bringing together 150 leading researchers in food science, engineering, nutrition, medicine, sport andexercise science, public health, marketing, supply chain and economics in support of the New Zealand food and beverage sector.Introducing some of our researchersfrom the Faculty of Medical and HealthSciences…Professor David Cameron-Smith is Professor in Nutritionat the Liggins Institute and works to understand the molecularmechanisms that regulate the responses to food and exercise. Hisresearch examines the biological pathways within skeletal muscleand adipose tissue that regulate muscle growth, fat storage andinflammation. The studies combine human cell culture techniquesand detailed analysis of tissue samples to identify strategies to buildmuscle, lose fat and combat chronic inflammation which is anunderlying contributor to heart disease and diabetes.Professor Jill Cornish leads the Skeletal Biology Laboratoryin the Department of Medicine in the Faculty of Medical and HealthSciences. Her team has been investigating novel bone-active factorsin milk for over 10 years, isolating proteins and fats from dairy thathave proven to be beneficial to bone health and this has enabledthe development of new intellectual property.Professor Wayne Cutfield is Professor of Paediatric Endocrinologyand Director of the Liggins Institute. He is also Director of thePaykel Clinical Research Unit at the Liggins where he directs clinicalresearch on the impact of early life or environmental influences onchildhood growth and development, and how these can lead tochronic conditions in adult life. Internationally he is known for researchin three areas: assessment of insulin action in children; earlylife programming of metabolic disease and evaluation; managementof growth disorders in childhood.Professor Lynnette Ferguson is Head of the Discipline ofNutrition Research in the School of Medical Sciences. Her currentresearch examines the interplay between genes and diet in the developmentof chronic disease, with a focus on inflammatory boweldisease, a cancer-prone condition which can be linked to prostatecancer. As programme leader for the multidisciplinary-multiorganisationNutrigenomics New Zealand, she is working with otherresearchers to bring the tools of personalised nutrition (nutrigenomics)and its potential to the New Zealand food industry.Professor Robert Scragg is Head of the Section of Epidemiology& Biostatistics, at the School of Population Health. He hascarried out several large scale epidemiological studies of diet andcardiovascular disease in New Zealand. He is a leading internationalresearcher on Vitamin D and disease. He is currently leading a majorclinical trial of 5000 people to determine the effects of Vitamin Dsupplementation on health. He has been an advisor to the Ministryof Health on several national surveys on nutrition and health.Professor Boyd Swinburn, see ‘Tech Briefs’Associate Professor Geoffrey Krissansen is a member ofthe Department of Molecular Medicine & Pathology in the School ofMedical Sciences. His laboratory focuses on understanding tumourbiology and inflammatory disease. He has a special interest in developingfood bio-actives to prevent development of disease, augmentconventional therapies, and attenuate the side-effects of therapy.Associate Professor Cliona Ni Mhurchu is ProgrammeLeader for Nutrition at the Clinical Trials Research Unit. Her researchfocuses on upstream determinants of nutrition and health suchas food pricing, food labelling, and food composition. She leadsprojects that include: Supermarket Healthy Options Project (SHOP),‘Population Interventions to Improve Diet and Physical Activity’(HRC research programme); and a trial of the effects of free breakfastprogrammes on children’s school achievement. She holds theNational Heart Foundation Senior Fellowship.Associate Professor Lindsay Plank, School of Medicine,has research interests in body composition, energy metabolism, andclinical nutrition including immunonutrition with a recent focus onthe insulin resistance and malnutrition of chronic liver disease. Heis director of a state-of-the-art body composition laboratory, uniquefor being able to provide detailed body composition information,including total protein stores, on in-hospital patients. His researchalso focuses on differences in body composition, specifically fatmass and fat distribution, skeletal muscle and bone mass, across themajor ethnic groups in NZ.Dr Mark Vickers is a Senior Research Fellow and leads theDevelopmental Programming Group at the Liggins Institute. His primaryresearch interest is on the effects of altered early life nutritionon the health and well-being of offspring with a particular focus onmaternal nutrition and obesity/diabetes risk in offspring. Dr Vickersis also investigating possible intervention strategies to ameliorate orreverse some of the adverse metabolic effects observed in offspringfollowing a poor start to life.Dr Clare Wall, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition in the School ofMedical Sciences, has research interests in infant and early childhoodnutrition, micronutrient assessment, and dietary assessmentmethodology. She researches the interrelationship between thedeterminants of nutritional status and health outcomes in paediatricpopulations. The nutritional environment is recognised as the newfrontier for human adaptation with more people living in environmentsthat are not conducive of good nutrition practice. The challengetoday is to understand how we can improve nutritional statusin young children to ensure a life of optimal health.For further information please contact Karl Crawford, Business Manager, UniServices+64 9 923 5118 | 021 226 8227 | k.crawford@auckland.ac.nzwww.foodandhealth.auckland.ac.nzDecember 2011/January 2012 17