The Pennington Biomedical Research Center CNRU (to be called NORC beginning 2010) was first funded by the NIDDK in September 2005, with Dr. Eric Ravussin as Director and Dr. Donna Ryan as Associate Director. The NORC at Pennington has as its mission the advancement of nutrition and obesity research, broadly defined, as well as providing special emphasis within a thematic area. The chosen theme of the NORC is 'Nutritional Programming: Environmental and Molecular Interactions'. This focus is based on emerging interests in epigenetic phenomena such as how environmental events in prenatal and early post-natal life can influence (through biologic mechanisms such as by gene methylations and demethylations) the risk for the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome in later adulthood. Without a doubt, the theme chosen five years ago was prescient, as there continues to be ever growing interest in epigenetic drivers which can impact chronic diseases in adulthood, primarily through mediation of the different facets of the metabolic syndrome and the chronic impairments associated with aging. Overview of the Organization of the NORC: To achieve our aim of promoting high quality research and facilitating multi-disciplinary collaboration among investigators involved in nutrition and obesity research, the organization of the NORC is designed to be integrated into the structure of the host institution, Pennington Biomedical Research Center. The structure of the original CNRU included the following four Cores: Administrative Core led by Drs. Eric Ravussin and Donna Ryan, Human Phenotyping Core led by Drs. Steve Smith and Donald Williamson, Molecular Mechanisms Core led by Drs. Les Kozak, Jeff Gimble and Tom Gettys and Animal Models and Phenotyping Core led by Drs. Andrew Butler and Randy Mynatt. The organizational structure and function of the NORC is described later in greater detail. Note that for this renewal the Human Phenotyping Core is now led by Dr. William Cefalu, the Molecular Mechanisms Core by Dr. Les Kozak with Dr. David Burk as Associate Director and the Animal Models and Phenotyping Core now led by Dr. Randy Mynatt with Dr. Don Ingram as Associate Director.
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