The continued and growing importance of nutritional sciences to improving the public's health is evident in current national initiatives. These include the review of Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D by the Institute of Medicine and related initiatives to develop a process for regular review of nutrient-based dietary standards, the new Roadmap for USDA Science, the recent publications of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the release of Healthy People 2020: The Road Ahead. The proposed program is designed to meet the training requirements imposed by this fundamental need and it recognizes the multidisciplinary demands inherent to the questions that have the greatest relevance to human nutrition research.
Its specific aim i s 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 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 12 predoctoral 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, and now includes translational training to meet national needs through both doctoral training and a combined PhD-RD training component. In the last 4 years, the infrastructure for supporting the proposed training program has been strengthened significantly by a major revision of the graduate nutrition curriculum, the recruitment of 7 new faculty members and the acquisition of equipment key to the program's growing emphases in nutritional genomics and tracer technologies. 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.
Over the past 36 years, this NIDDK-supported training program has been instrumental in the development of nutrition professionals who hold faculty positions at universities and medical schools throughout the United States, in academic, government, and industrial research laboratories, and in key policy positions in government, international agencies, and private foundations. 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. The Nutrition Training Program emphasizes translational and collaborative approaches to meet national needs in translational research and practice through both doctoral training in nutrition and through a combined PhD-RD training program.
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