GLOBAL CAPACITY BUILDING IN NUTRITION SCIENCE: TRAINING FUTURE PRACTITIONERS, EMPOWERING FUTURE LEADERS - May 31 - June 1, 2012
Location: The New York Academy of Sciences, New York City
Building capacity in nutrition science is fundamental at all levels and across multiple dimensions: from basic science research to policy making, from program design to program implementation and evaluation, and from individual nutrition counseling skills to management and leadership skills. Nutrition issues are often placed at the crossroads of several disciplines, and lack of capacity in initiating and leading multi-sectoral interactions leads to many missed opportunities in addressing nutrition problems.
Where do we stand in terms of the capacity of the current and future generations of nutrition and public health practitioners in addressing the double burden of malnutrition? What are the obstacles to adequate capacity-building and how can they be overcome?
This conference brings together leading experts from the academia, industry and the non-profit sectors to review the state of the current educational and professional trainings available in the nutrition domain, and to discuss novel ideas and methods for filling in the gaps in future.
Speakers: Christina Stark, RD, CDN, Cornell Nutrition Works; Emorn Wasantwisut, PhD, Mahidol University; Debra J. Wolgemuth, PhD, Columbia University; Derek Yach, MBChB, MPH, PepsiCo
Presented by: The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science at the New York Academy of Sciences.
March 9, 2012
Ananda S. Prasad, M.D., Ph.D., MACN
The American Physiological Society will recognize Ananda Prasad, M.D., Ph.D., Wayne State University Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine, as a medical scientist whose work has significantly advanced the discipline and profession of physiology.
Dr. Prasad, a world-renowned expert in zinc as a mineral essential to human life, will be honored at the APS symposium April 25 in San Diego, Calif. During the symposium, the society will recognize the achievements of 35 of its members during the past 125 years.
“I am very excited that my discovery of human zinc deficiency 50 years ago will be the subject of a symposium. This is a great honor because usually in a history symposium, the works of deceased scientists are presented, but I will be witnessing living history,” Dr. Prasad said.
The names and titles of the members’ seminal publications will be highlighted during a Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology symposium at same meeting.
Dr. Prasad has made important strides researching the mineral zinc, as well as contributing significantly to the field of hematology and sickle cell disease. His work with zinc began when one of his former professors received an invitation from the Shah of Iran to establish a medical curriculum at the University of Shiraz Medical School and invited Dr. Prasad to accompany him. Two weeks after his arrival, a 21-year-old man who looked like an 8-year-old boy came to Dr. Prasad. The patient lacked secondary male characteristics, was considered mentally lethargic and ate clay. Dr. Prasad diagnosed the man's condition as extreme anemia, but couldn't understand how such a condition came about because most males do not develop anemia without bleeding.
The condition was so prevalent in Iran that it was considered an epidemic. Dr. Prasad studied the condition and hypothesized that because plants do not grow without sufficient zinc, perhaps people do not either.
In the developed world, zinc abounds in a variety of food sources, such as fresh fish, red meat, oysters and dairy products. In developing countries, diets primarily consist of breads and grains, which contain phytate, a substance that binds zinc and iron and prevents both minerals from being absorbed by the human body.
In 1961, Dr. Prasad published an article in the American Journal of Medicine suggesting for the first time that zinc deficiency could account for human growth retardation. In a subsequent paper based on studies done in similar patients from Egypt, Dr. Prasad established the study subjects suffered zinc deficiency. That study was published in The Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine in 1963 and later was republished in 1990 as a landmark article in the same journal.
After the publication of these papers, Dr. Prasad started administering zinc through clinical trials, and his subjects began growing taller and developing male characteristics.
Since then, Dr. Prasad has continued to study the role zinc plays in human development. In 1975, he suggested the National Research Council set the Recommended Daily Allowance for zinc at 15 milligrams per day.
In addition, his zinc studies have saved countless lives in African and Asian countries, including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In these areas, the mortality rate from infantile diarrhea approached 85 percent. When the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization adopted zinc supplements to combat infant diarrhea in these regions, that mortality rate dropped to 15 percent.
In December 2009, TIME magazine named zinc the “miracle mineral.”
Dr. Prasad received a congressional commendation for his lifelong studies involving zinc in 2011.
Call-for-Papers: Systems and Childhood Obesity
We would like to invite your participation in a special issue of the Journal of Pediatric Biochemistry dedicated to the interaction and impact of the biological, familial, social/cultural, and built environmental systems on childhood obesity.
Submission deadline: May 31, 2012
Review and notification of decision: July 9, 2012
Questions should be directed to: Preston Mercer: pmercer@poly.usf.edu
Journal information and instruction for authors
Journal of Pediatric Biochemistry
Journal of Pediatric Biochemistry is an English multidisciplinary peer-reviewed international journal publishing articles in the field of child biochemistry, pediatric laboratory medicine and biochemical aspects to the study of childhood diseases in body fluids, cells or tissues. Journal of Pediatric Biochemistry provides an in-depth update on new subjects, and current comprehensive coverage of the latest techniques in biochemical diagnosis in childhood. Journal of Pediatric Biochemistry encourages submissions from all authors throughout the world. The following articles will be considered for publication: editorials, original and review articles, short report, rapid communications, letters to the editor, and book reviews. The aim of the journal is to share and disseminate knowledge between all disciplines that work in the field of child biochemistry Instructions for authors can be found at: http://www.childscience.org/html/jpb/instructions.html
Submissions should be sent to: Preston Mercer: pmercer@poly.usf.edu
Rita DeBate: rdebate@health.usf.edu