Nutrition Training

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PROJECT SUMMARY The growing importance of nutritional sciences to improving the public's health is evident in current national initiatives including the 2016-2021 “National Nutrition Research Roadmap” (NNRR), which identified critical nutrition research gaps and opportunities, emphasizing that “Improved Nutrition could be one of the most cost- effective approaches to address many of the societal, environmental and economic challenges facing nations across the globe today.” The proposed program is designed to meet the training requirements imposed by this fundamental need and it recognizes the multidisciplinary and translational science demands that are inherent to the questions that have the greatest relevance to human nutrition research. Its specific aim is to train, over a 5- year period, research leaders for academia, government and the private for-profit and non-profit sectors in the area of Nutritional Sciences, with a strong focus on multidisciplinary research and translational science. A broad range of disciplines is necessary to address this aim, which is represented among the proposed training staff, i.e., genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry through epidemiology, sociology, psychology and economics. Externally NIH-funded research complements a strong didactic program. External research support from other federal, state, international, and private sources substantially augment this base and leverage NIH-sponsored funding. Resources for the continuing annual support of 8 predoctoral and 2 post-doctoral trainees are sought. Graduate nutrition training at Cornell University continues to emphasize multidisciplinary and integrative scholarship across the biological, physical, behavioral, and social sciences, as appropriate for individual trainees. Unique to this program is translational research training and co-mentorship to meet national needs through doctoral training, a combined PhD-RD training component, and new to this renewal application, post-doctoral training. In the last 4 years, the infrastructure for supporting the proposed training program has been strengthened significantly by the recruitment of new faculty members, increased research funding support, and key partnerships with the World Health Organization and Cochrane that enhance Cornell's capabilities in translational science and evidence synthesis. The DNS' research and training capabilities have been strengthened in areas of: Maternal & Child Nutrition; Obesity & Chronic Disease; Nutritional Genomics, and Global Health & Nutrition. These themes are addressed using approaches and perspectives from the life sciences, social/behavioral sciences, and physical sciences. These new and continuing strengths, and the program's documented contributions to the training of nutrition professionals presently in key positions in academia, government, and the for-profit and non-profit sectors, support the training program's objectives and specific aims.