Saroja Voruganti, PhD

Director of Clinical Research Core Lab, Associate Professor of Nutrition

Dr. Saroja Voruganti, Associate Professor of Nutrition, is working on building a nationally and internationally recognized research program in nutritional genomics at UNC. A unique field, nutritional genomics seeks to identify genetic susceptibility to diseases, effect of genetic variation on nutrient metabolism and the effect of nutrients on gene expression. She has extensively investigated the interplay between nutritional and genetic factors influencing disease risk in ethnically diverse populations, especially minority populations such as Mexican American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Parsi Zoroastrian and Hispanic children populations. Her research is focused on uncovering new connections between genetics, nutrition, and epidemiology that can lead to more accurate determination disease risk and new treatment options for metabolic diseases. The key areas of her research program include:

  • Gene-nutrient interactions affecting purine metabolism and related neurodegenerative diseases
  • Genetic and environmental factors affecting complex diseases such as obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes in ethnically diverse populations

 

Voruganti’s Team

In the News

Mold the Scientific Minds of Tomorrow, Part II

Last week you met three of our current doctoral students and today we introduce you to three more. The UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) is helping mold the scientific minds of tomorrow by offering unique learning and work experiences for graduate students in the...

Molding the Scientific Minds of Tomorrow

The UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) is helping mold the scientific minds of tomorrow by offering unique learning and work experiences for graduate students in sciences related to personalized nutrition, like nutrigenomics and metabolomics. These young...

UNC-Chapel Hill Nutrition Students Visit NRI

On Friday, February 3, 50 nutrition students from UNC-Chapel Hill came to the UNC Nutrition Research Institute with their professor, Amanda Holliday, to practice nutrition assessment techniques in a new setting and learn more about nutrition from a research...

Publications