NEBRASKA FOOD FOR HEALTH CENTER - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• PROFESSOR, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture

James Schnable's group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln focuses on the quantitative genetics and breeding of corn, sorghum, and other related crops. Using a combination of advanced genomic, phenomic and machine learning technologies his team is identifying specific genes in crops that improve both the agronomic properties and food quality/value of crop plants. In his eight years at the University, he has established three companies in the fields of bioinformatics, climate-resilient agriculture, and precision agronomy, raised over $7 million in funding from angel and venture investors, and secured more than $20M funding for his research program from a wide range of government agencies and organizations including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foundation for Food and Agricultural research, for-profit companies and NGOs. Dr. Schnable recently returned to the University of Nebraska after a leave of absence to work at X, a division of Google that develops and implements "moonshot" technologies to make the world a radically better place.

Job Titles:

• Member of the NFHC Advisory Board

Research Interests: Dr. Bruce German's laboratory group focuses on research seeking to understand how to improve foods and their ability to deliver improved health. The model being used to pave the way toward improving the health benefits of foods is milk, which evolved to make healthy mammals healthier. Milk is the only biomaterial that has evolved under the Darwinian selective pressure for the specific and sole purpose of nourishing growing mammals. Survival of offspring exerted a strong selective pressure on the biochemical evolution of lactation. This process has led to the appearance of new compositional properties of milk that promote health, strength, and ultimately survival. This evolutionary logic is the basis of the research program to discover physical, functional and nutritional properties of milk components. Dr. German is also interested in personalized health and research is developing the means to understand how individual human lipid metabolism responds to the lipid composition of diets. Each person has slightly different responses to diet based on their own genetics, metabolism and nutrition status. One of the goals of the laboratory research is to understand the molecular basis of these differences, how to recognize them, and design food strategies to complement them. We are working on analyses to allow individuals to monitor how their body reacts to various foods and to modify their consumption to maintain good health. Education: German received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Job Titles:

• Member of the NFHC Advisory Board

Research Interests: Dr. Bruce Hamaker's general research areas include carbohydrates & health, starch, and cereal chemistry. His specific research interests include: manipulation of starch digestion rate for low glycemic response/slow digestion; dietary fiber, modifications in functionality and fermentability, microbiota changes; cereal starch and protein functionality; textural properties influenced by starch fine structure; interactions between starch and other food components; appropriate methods of improving cereal utilization in developing countries; cereal endosperm texture; and electron and confocal microscopy of cereal components.

Job Titles:

• Member of the NFHC Advisory Board

While Dr. Chris Wilson was the Director of the Global Health Discovery Program, he led a team that targets fundamental scientific and technological advances in global health that could lead to new ways to prevent, treat, and diagnose disease. Wilson joined the foundation in 2009 as Deputy Director, Vaccine Discovery and Human Biology, Global Health Discovery. He joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1979 in the Infectious Diseases Division of the Department of Pediatrics and later served as head of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Immunology and Rheumatology. In 1989, he became one of the founding faculty members in the new Department of Immunology, and served as Chairman of the Department of Immunology and head of the graduate program in immunology from 1999-2009. He has also served on a number of national advisory panels, including the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Review Committee (2001-2004) and the National Advisory Council on Child Health and Human Development, NICHD, NIH, and he co-chaired the NIAID US Immunodeficiency Network Pilot Grant Review Committee. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Research Interests: Pediatrics and immunology Education: Wilson received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Irvine and a medical degree from UCLA. He trained in pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital /Harvard Medical School, served in the US Public Health Service, and then was a post-doctoral fellow in infectious diseases while performing immunology research at Stanford University.

Job Titles:

• Member of the NFHC Advisory Board

Research Interests: Dr. Eamonn Quigley is internationally known for his research on gastrointestinal motility disorders, primarily irritable bowel syndrome (IBS); gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD); neurogastroenterology (the relationship between the central nervous system and the gut); the gut microbiome and probiotics in health and disease. A highlight of his ongoing research includes how bacteria in the digestive tract play a major role in pulling nutrients from food to nourish the body, as well as participating in protecting the body from disease. He has published more than 800 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, editorials, book chapters and case reports, mostly in the areas of gut motility, functional gastrointestinal disorders, and GERD. Quigley has received numerous international honors and awards. Additional Positions: Dr. Eamonn M. M. Quigley, past president of the American College of Gastroenterology and the World Gastroenterology Organization, joined the faculty at Houston Methodist Hospital as head of its Gastroenterology and Hepatology division in 2013. Prior to his move to Houston, Quigley was professor of medicine and human physiology and a principal investigator at the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at the National University of Ireland in Cork. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Gastroenterology from 1997 to 2003. Education: Quigley graduated in medicine (MB BCh BAO) from the National University of Ireland, Cork. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the Western Infirmary and associated hospitals in Glasgow, Scotland. He completed a two-year research fellowship, leading to an MD degree by thesis, at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA.

Job Titles:

• Technical Project Manager

Jill is the Technical Project Manager at Nebraska Food for Health Center. Her primary duties include managing the research output/product development lifecycle for NFHC and the Maize Genetics Program. She works multi-campus with the NFHC pipeline and MGP infrastructure to ensure effective communication for discovery, translational animal models, and human clinical trials. During her 20 years at UNL, Jill was Project Manager for numerous grants with the USDA, NSF, and USGS, as well as working with Office of Research and Nebraska Educational Television. Jill holds a B.A. in Business & Computer Science and M.S. in Agriculture Leadership from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. If she is not at work, she's watching baseball or on the golf course.

Job Titles:

• Department of Biology

The Clayton lab is studying host-microbiome interactions in humans and nonhuman primates. We are using nonhuman primates as a model for studying the effects of variations in dietary fiber and other dietary compounds, as well as lifestyle factors associated with modernized society, on the microbiome and metabolic health. Dr. Clayton received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) and his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Comparative and Molecular Biosciences from the University of Minnesota. For his Ph.D. thesis research, he used nonhuman primates as a model system for studying the effects of emigration and lifestyle disruption on the human gut microbiome. During his Ph.D., Dr. Clayton founded the Primate Microbiome Project (PMP) with the intended purpose to develop a systematic map of variation in microbiome structure and function across all primates and to relate this to primate health, evolution, behavior, and conservation. The Clayton Lab are currently extending our research to explore in detail causal mechanisms for microbiome-modulated metabolic diseases including diabetes and obesity, as well as neurological/behavioral diseases such as stress. We do this using both in vitro and in vivo experiments, including, but not limited to, next-generation sequencing, anaerobic and aerobic culture, germ-free mouse models, and marmoset models.

Job Titles:

• Department of Food

The overarching goal of Dr. Majumder's laboratory is to understand the impact of dietary proteins and peptides on human health, and to develop dietary-peptide-based functional foods for the prevention and treatment of hypertension and associated cardio-metabolic disorders. The research program targets to delineate the mechanisms of action of dietary bioactive proteins/peptides and explores their underlying signaling mechanism to modulate the pathogenesis of cardiac diseases. Presently our work focuses on how dietary peptides modulates the gastro-renal axis to regulate the blood pressure. The research program also aims to identify the biomarkers and the genetic alteration happen due to the intervention of bioactive food proteins/peptides. Additionally, Dr. Majumder's laboratory also explore the potential of different food processing techniques (i.e., enzymatic digestion, fermentation) to produce health beneficial bioactive peptides from various plant-based proteins.

Job Titles:

• Department of Food

The goal of Dr. Piepenbrink's research program is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which bacteria interact with their surroundings; this includes host cells, abiotic surfaces, extracellular structures and, in particular, other bacteria. Dr. Piepenbrink's group is approaching the basic question of how bacteria self-assemble into communities by applying the lenses of structural biology and biophysics to microbial surface structures.

Job Titles:

• Clinical Assistant Director

Lisa is the Center's Clinical Assistant Director. She comes to us with a wealth of knowledge from previously working in the medical field. Lisa is involved in the day-to-day operations and needs of the clinic. She has been diligently working to get the clinic up and running. She is a native Nebraskan who enjoys spending time with her family and dogs.

Job Titles:

• Member of the NFHC Advisory Board

Professional Interests: Dr. Mary Ellen Sanders' professional activities focus on providing evidence-based guidance to food and dietary supplement companies on the role of probiotics in human health (www.mesanders.com). She advises on scientific substantiation of probiotic claims, product development and safety of probiotics. She also works with several non-profit organizations (including ISAPP, FAO/WHO, USP, ILSI-North America and World Gastroenterology Organisation) to provide information on probiotics for consumers and professionals. She has an extensive written (over 110 peer reviewed publications), oral and video record, including a website, www.usprobiotics.org.

Job Titles:

• Business / Project Manager
• the Business Project Specialist

Sharon is the Business Project Specialist, but goes by "Project Manager" to speed up introductions. Some of her primary roles including working with finances, policies, procedures, donor liaison, among many others. In previous lives she worked in the federal government in Washington D.C. managing NGO teams and grant portfolios focused on economic development. She's a native Nebraskan who spends an excessive amount of time at the dog park.