9th Annual Nutrition Omics Symposium

Frank Hu, MD, MPH, PhD, is the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His major research interests include epidemiology and prevention of cardiometabolic diseases through diet and lifestyle; gene-environment interactions and risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes; nutritional metabolomics in type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease; and nutrition transition, metabolic phenotypes, and cardiovascular disease in low and middle-income countries. Dr. Hu serves as Director of Dietary Biomarker Development Center at Harvard University. He has published a textbook on Obesity Epidemiology (Oxford University Press) and >1400 peer-reviewed papers with an H-index of 300. Dr. Hu served on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, USDA/HHS. He has served on the editorial/advisory board of The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, Diabetes Care, and Clinical Chemistry. Dr. Hu was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015. 

With formal training as a clinical dietitian and bioinformatician, as well as a PhD in nutritional epidemiology, Dr. Kerry Ivey’s work focuses on the development and implementation of novel statistical analyses for holistically unraveling diet-‘omic-health relationships. The complex MVP datasets that she works with comprise a vast array of data types and formats that describe the exposome (including lifestyle, diet, and medications) and the health-‘ome (clinical, biomarker, and health related measures and outcomes). In her role as Integrative Analytics and Nutrition Study Director within the MVP Phenomics Core, Dr. Ivey oversees and implements the development of methods for the analysis and visualization of longitudinal and time-varying relationships.

Dr. Rikard Landberg | Professor and Head of the Division of Food and Nutrition Science, Department of Life Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Dr. Landberg studies the preventive role of plant-based foods using large observational- and intervention studies integrating OMICs techniques. Metabolomics is a key technique in Dr. Landberg’s research program, and it is developed and applied for the discovery and validation of dietary- and prediction biomarkers and molecular phenotyping as the basis for tailored dietary strategies toward precision nutrition. Novel biomarkers from his lab are extensively used all over the world and new developments include metabolomics integrated with self-sampling. Dr Landberg is an elected member of the Young Academy of Sweden and of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Dr. Yang-Yu Liu is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Associate Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). He received his PhD in Physics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009. After that, he held positions as Postdoctoral Research Associate and then Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University, before he joined HMS and BWH in 2013. His current research efforts focus on the study of human microbiome from the community ecology, dynamical systems, control theory, and machine learning perspectives. For more information, please visit http://scholar.harvard.edu/yyl/

Prof. López-Miranda major research interests focus on the dietary and genetics factors predisposing to cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and their interaction with the environment and behavioral factors with special emphasis on diet and particularly on the gene-diet interaction determining cholesterol levels, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, obesity, endothelial function and cardiovascular diseases. The research carried out by his Unit is primarily in the area of human nutrition, personalized nutrition and the interaction between gene polymorphism and diet in lipoprotein metabolism, postprandial metabolism, insulin sensitivity, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and Metabolic Syndrome.

Prof. Lopez- Miranda has published almost 603 scientific articles in peer review journals, including The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, Diabetes, Diabetes Care, Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Journal of American College of Cardiology, Atherosclerosis, Journal of Lipid Research and the Journal of Nutrition. His “H” index is 63 at present.

JoAnn E. Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH, MACP, is Professor of Medicine and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). Dr. Manson is a physician epidemiologist, endocrinologist, and Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI of several research studies, including the Women’s Health Initiative Clinical Center In Boston, the cardiovascular component of the Nurses’ Health Study, the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL); the COSMOS trial, and the VItamin D for COVID-19 (VIVID) trial. Her primary research interests include randomized clinical prevention trials of nutritional and lifestyle factors related to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, the role of endogenous and exogenous estrogens as determinants of chronic disease, and biomarker predictors of CVD.

Prof. Miguel A. Martínez-González is a medical epidemiologist, Professor of Public Health at the University of Navarra, Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at Harvard TH School of Public Health (Dpt. of Nutrition) since 2016, and group leader at CIBEROBN, with >30 years of experience in epidemiologic research on chronic diseases, nutrition and lifestyles. As Principal Investigator (PI), he has designed and directed large trials and cohorts, including SUN, PREDIMED and PREDIMED-Plus, which have shed unparalleled light and scientific evidence from Spain with worldwide impact. Since 2013, he designed and is PI of the PREDIMED-Plus trial, funded by the European Research Council with an Advanced Research Grant (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/340918/).
Since 2013, he has also been actively involved, as co-PI, together with Frank B. Hu (Harvard University), in several NIH-funded grants on cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes assessing metabolomics in the context of the Mediterranean diet interventions conducted in the PREDIMED trial.
In 1995 he founded and started the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra, which today is one of the most fruitful and leading Departments in Spain. Since then, Prof. Martínez-González has published more than 1000 articles and abstracts indexed in Web of Science and he is one of the most cited scientists in Spain in the ranking of all scientific areas in recent years. He has been mentor of a large group of Full Professors and Associate Professors of Epidemiology and Public Health.
He is the editor of the main textbooks in Spanish on Biostatistics (Elsevier), Epidemiology (Ariel-Planeta) and Public Health (Elsevier).In 2022, he Chaired the Committee for designing a large national cohort in Spain (IMPaCT) similar to the UKBiobank, which will start its recruitment in the next months.
As a popularizer, his recent publications with Editorial Planeta stand out: “Salud a Ciencia Cierta (Evidence-based Health)” (2018) and “¿Qué comes? (What do you eat?)” (2020), “La sanidad en llamas” (2021) and “Salmones, hormonas y pantallas” (2023).

Dr. Qibin Qi is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Director of Center for Population Cohorts at Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Qi also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Qi has a broad background in epidemiology studies with specific training and expertise in genetics, biomarkers and nutrition. His current research has focused on multi omics, including metabolomics, genomics and transcriptomics, as well as gut microbiome, in relation to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in both general population and under-studied populations (e.g., US Hispanics, HIV-infected populations).

Henrik Roager is an Associate Professor and Head of the Gut Microbes, Diet and Health research group at the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen. He combines the fields of metabolomics, gut microbiota and human nutrition to understand personal diet-microbiome interactions and the mechanisms by which the gut microbiota contributes to digestion and health. Henrik holds a PhD from the Technical University of Denmark (2016) and has published >30 papers including corresponding and first authorships in high ranking journals such as Nature Microbiology, Gut, and Nature Communications.

Dr. Ruiz-Canela is Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra, Spain. He has completed his Ph.D. at the University of Navarra and Master’s Degree on Public Health in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His research is currently focused on Mediterranean diet, cardiometabolic diseases and metabolomics, and culinary medicine. He is involved in different studies including the SUN cohort and the PREDIMED-Plus trial. He is coordinating research activities between the University of Navarra and the University of Harvard on different NIH projects about metabolomics, cardiovascular disease and diabetes within the PREDIMED study. He is PI in the PREDIMAR trial, about Mediterranean diet and secondary prevention of atrial fibrillation. He is also PI in two projects on culinary medicine and prevention of chronic diseases. He has been Visiting Scientist at the Department of Nutrition of the Harvard School of Public Health (2014/2016/2018).

Distinguished Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Human Nutrition Unit – Rovira i Virgili University (URV), and ICREA Academia Investigator; CIBERobn Investigator and coordinator of its Nutrition Program. Currently, is the Director of the Centre Català de la Nutrició (CCNIEC), Chairman of the World Forum for Nutrition Research and Dissemination (INC); Member of the Expert Panel of Diabetes and Nutrition Study Group (DSNG) of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), among others.

Prof. Salas’ research has focused on clinical trials in humans to evaluate the effect of food, dietary compounds and dietary patterns on obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Since 2005, he is one of the leaders of the PREDIMED Study (n=7447 participants), and is currently Coordinator and Chairman of the Steering Committee of the PREDIMED-Plus study (n=6874 participants), two large clinical trials for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and mortality. PREDIMED-Plus is a multi-collaborative project involving 30 research groups, and had received National, European & USA grants. With all these projects and collaborations, the group has developed skills in precision medicine using different OMIC´s methodologies, especially metabolomics and metagenomics, which we are now implementing in epidemiologic and clinical studies. He is also involved in two prospective cohort studies: CORALS and LEDFERTYL.

He has published more than 750 scientific articles, adding more than 37000 citations with an SCI H-index 92, and has published 14 books and directed 32 Doctoral Theses.

Dr. Shengmin Sang is a Distinguished Professor of Functional Foods and Human Health at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University/North Carolina Research Campus. He is also a full-faculty member in the UNC Linebergar Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC Chapel Hill, an adjunct Professor in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutritional Sciences at North Carolina State University, and the Associate Editor of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Dr. Sang’s lab studies food biomarkers using the combination of natural product chemistry, analytical chemistry, medicinal chemistry, drug metabolism, and targeted and untargeted metabolomics. His lab also has interest to use fecal metabolon as the indicators to reflect an individual’s dietary and health status.

Dr. Qi Sun is Associate Professor in the Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also Associate Professor of Medicine at Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sun’s primary research interests are to identify and examine biomedical risk factors, particularly dietary biomarkers, in relation to type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease through epidemiological investigations. His research is primarily based on several large-scale cohort studies including the Nurses’ Health Studies and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Dr. Sun is also interested in understanding the role of environmental pollutants, such as perfluoroalkyl substances and legacy persistent organic pollutants, in the etiology of weight change and type 2 diabetes. His research has led to more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Sun is currently leading a few NIH-funded projects that focus on food biomarker discovery and validation, as well as relationships between obesogens and weight change, in human populations.

Current position: Professor and Deputy Chair at the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Navarra; co-PI of the CB12/03/30017 group and member of the steering committee at the CIBEROBN; coordinator of the Epidemiology and Public Health group and member of the internal scientific Committee at the Institute for Health Research of Navarra; member of the Research Committee of the University of Navarra Clinic
Dr. Toledo is Professor at the University of Navarra. She received her MD and her PhD at the University of Navarra and her MPH at the National School of Health, both in Spain. She has been Visiting Scientist at the Department of Nutrition of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She teaches several courses on Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Preventive Medicine and Public Health. Her research has focused on the association between lifestyle factors -mainly dietary factors- on chronic diseases, especially on cardiovascular disease and cancer. Since 2006 she has actively participated in the SUN Project, in the PREDIMED trial and currently also in the PREDIMED-Plus trial. She is helping in the coordination of two NIH-funded projects framed in the PREDIMED trial about metabolomics and cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes between the University of Navarra and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also the PI of another NIH-funded grant on the atrial fibrillation substrate in the frame of the PREDIMED Plus trial. In addition, she is the coordinator of the LifeBreast trial, a nutritional intervention trial among breast cancer patients. She has an h-index of 48 and a full list of publications can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1fYkDuD8TjCQn

Dr. David Wishart (PhD Yale, 1991) is a Distinguished University Professor in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Computing Science at the University of Alberta. He also holds adjunct appointments with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences and with the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He has been with the University of Alberta since 1995. Dr. Wishart’s research interests are very wide ranging, covering metabolomics, analytical chemistry, food chemistry, natural product chemistry, molecular biology, protein chemistry and neuroscience. He has developed a number of widely techniques based on NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, liquid chromatography and gas chromatography to characterize the structures of both small and large molecules. As part of this effort, Dr. Wishart has led the “Human Metabolome Project” (HMP), a multi-university, multi-investigator project that is cataloguing all the known chemicals in human tissues and biofluids. Using a variety of analytical chemistry techniques along with text mining and machine learning, Dr. Wishart and his colleagues have identified or found evidence for more than 250,000 metabolites in the human body. This information has been archived on a freely accessible web-resource called the Human Metabolome Database (HMDB). More recently, Dr. Wishart’s efforts have focused on using the same methods developed for the HMDB to help characterize the chemical constituents in various foods (through a database called FooDB) and food-associated biomarkers. His lab has also been using machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to help create other useful chemistry databases and software tools to help with the characterization and identification of metabolites, drugs, pesticides and natural products. Over the course of his career Dr. Wishart has published more than 500 research papers in high profile journals on a wide variety of subject areas. These papers have been cited >100,000 times.