MRC International Nutrition Group Quinquennial Renewal

营养不良是全球健康面临的可改变的最大威胁。在世界上最贫穷国家的儿童中尤其如此，营养不良和感染齐头并进，导致高死亡率，并阻止儿童充分发挥潜力。营养缺乏的许多解决办法已经为人所知，需要政治意愿、经济进步和业务研究才能解决这些问题。然而，许多尚未解决的科学问题仍然存在，这些问题严重阻碍了干预措施的设计和实施，而这些干预措施可能会立即带来健康效益并挽救数百万人的生命。MRC国际营养小组的使命是通过研究阐明饮食与疾病之间的联系机制来克服这些障碍（见www.ing.mrc.ac.uk）。我们的愿景是通过将转化为医疗和公共卫生进步的研究，改善各国，特别是撒哈拉以南非洲国家的健康状况。MRC ING总部设在伦敦卫生与热带医学学院（LSHTM），并在冈比亚农村的MRC Keneba经营一个主要的永久性野外观测站。在研究人员和当地居民之间的卓越合作伙伴关系中，MRC在Keneba支持了超过65年的国际卓越研究，取得了许多开创性的进展。我们的研究分为四个主题：早期生长和发育主题侧重于母亲和婴儿，并试图了解整个生命过程（从婴儿怀孕前到怀孕、哺乳和童年）中营养缺乏对生长、免疫和大脑发育的影响。它试图确定营养补充剂最有效的关键时机，并确定这类食物的最佳性质。铁、感染和贫血的主题是利用最近发现的hepcidin——一种作为铁代谢的主要调节剂的激素——试图了解人类及其病原体（细菌、病毒和原生动物）如何争夺这种必需的营养物质。如果给生活在感染环境中的儿童服用铁，这种对铁的争夺可能会导致严重的不良后果。钙、维生素D和骨骼健康主题旨在了解营养和其他环境因素如何影响骨骼健康。很少食用乳制品的人群适应了钙摄入量非常低的生活，并且可能显示出钙补充的自相矛盾的有害影响。了解钙和维生素D如何影响骨骼健康和骨质疏松症等相关问题对发达国家至关重要，随着人口向西方饮食过渡，寿命开始延长，在新兴社会也将如此。营养遗传学的主题是通过遗传学研究，试图确定饮食与健康和疾病之间的关键代谢途径。一个人一生中基因的表达方式也会受到营养的影响（所谓的表观遗传学）。了解这些过程对人类健康具有深远的意义。它们被认为掌握着早期营养如何影响终身健康的线索。ING对表观遗传学做出了重要贡献。现代科学需要众多技术和专业领域的合作。基于在MRC Keneba卓越的研究机会，ING能够吸引世界领先的科学家来协助我们的发现任务。虽然主要关注撒哈拉以南非洲的营养问题，但我们的研究有助于解决全球相关问题，因为它侧重于发现食物和营养物质如何影响人类健康。

Malnutrition represents the greatest modifiable threat to global health. This is especially so among children in the world's poorest nations where malnutrition and infections act hand-in-hand leading to high mortality and preventing children from reaching their full potential. Many of the solutions to nutritional deficiencies are already known, and require political will, economic advancement and operational research to achieve a resolution. However, a host of unsolved scientific questions remain and these are critically inhibiting the design and implementation of interventions that could potentially bring immediate health benefits and save millions of lives. The MRC International Nutrition Group's mission is to overcome these barriers through research that illuminates the mechanisms linking diet to disease (see www.ing.mrc.ac.uk). Our vision is to improve the health of nations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, through research that will translate into medical and public health advances.MRC ING is based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and runs a major permanent fieldstation at MRC Keneba in rural Gambia. In a remarkable partnership between researchers and the local population the MRC has supported internationally pre-eminent research at Keneba for over 65 years leading to numerous seminal advances.Our research falls under 4 themes:The Early Growth and Development theme focuses on mothers and babies and seeks to understand the effects of nutrient deficiencies throughout the lifecourse (from before a baby is conceived through pregnancy, lactation and childhood) on growth, immunity and brain development. It seeks to define critical windows of opportunity when nutritional supplements would be most effective, and to define the optimal nature of such foods.The Iron, Infection and Anemia theme is exploiting the recent discovery of hepcidin - a hormone that acts as the master regulator of iron metabolism - to try to understand how humans and their pathogens (bacteria, viruses and protozoa) compete for this essential nutrient. This battle for iron can lead to serious adverse outcomes if iron is administered to children living in infectious environments. The Calcium, Vitamin D and Bone Health theme seeks to understand how bone health is affected by nutrition and other environmental factors. Populations consuming little dairy produce adapt to living on very low calcium intakes and can show paradoxically harmful effects of calcium supplementation. Understanding how calcium and vitamin D affect bone health and related problems such as osteoporosis is of crucial importance in developed nations and will become so in emerging societies as populations transition towards more Western diets and start to live longer.The Nutritional Genetics theme uses genetic studies to try and pinpoint the key metabolic pathways that link diet with health and disease. The manner in which a person's genes are expressed throughout life can also be influenced by nutrition (so called epigenetics). Understanding these processes have profound implications for human health. They are thought to hold the clues as to how early-life nutrition affects lifelong health. ING is making important contributions to the science of epigenetics.Modern science requires collaborations across numerous technologies and areas of expertise. Based upon the exceptional research opportunities at MRC Keneba, ING is able to attract world-leading scientists to assist us in our discovery mission. Although focussed primarily on the nutritional issues of Sub-Saharan African our research contributes to globally-relevant problems because it focuses on making basic discoveries about how foods and nutrients affect human health.