Participants from around the world attended the NRI’s fourth consecutive Nutrigenetics, Nutrigenomics, and Precision Nutrition Short Course from June 3 – 6 in Kannapolis on the North Carolina Research Campus. Known as “NGx,” the 4-day, workshop-style course provides the fundamental concepts of nutrigenetics, nutrigenomics and precision nutrition for graduate students, health professionals and nutrition scientists from academia and industry. The course was described by one attendee as, “a perfect balance between lectures, hands-on and networking activities.”
This year’s speakers included 15 faculty from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Charlotte, and the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN) in Mexico City. Claude Bouchard, PhD, Professor and John W. Barton, Sr. Endowed Chair in Genetics and Nutrition at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University delivered the keynote address.
The 61 attendees at this year’s NGx included graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty, clinical practitioners (MD and RD), and biotechnology company researchers and directors, who hailed from 24 states and 7 additional countries. One participant said the course was useful because, “I have felt tension about ‘non-responders’ in my clinical studies. I believe this course will help find a piece of puzzle that clarifies the big picture.”
NRI principal investigator Saroja Voruganti, PhD, the course’s director, said, “NGx provides an excellent platform to understand the role of genetic factors influencing the variation in responses to diet, and offers tools that are applicable to clinical as well as epidemiological research.”
