Diet And Nutrition

Janos Zempleni is director of the Nebraska Center for Prevention of Obesity Diseases. With research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, private foundations and industry, Zempleni developed an internationally renowned research program with a focus on natural nanoparticles, or exosomes, and their cargos in milk. His research has an emphasis on optimal infant nutrition, gene regulation by milk exosomes and the delivery of cancer drugs to tumors through milk exosomes. He has mentored more than 100 undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral associates and visiting scientists, published 120 research papers and presented his research internationally.

Recently, researchers have found that obesity leads to chronic low-level inflammation, which makes the disease condition worse in obesity-related diseases. Jiujiu Yu’s lab studies the anti-inflammatory functions of dietary components. Her team is trying to find dietary components that could reduce inflammation and improve obese patients’ conditions.

Dr. Andrew Benson teaches food microbiology and advanced food microbiology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His two primary research areas are genome evolution in pathogenic bacteria and evolution and development of our microflora. In 2017, Benson established the Nebraska Food for Health Center, a $40.3 million collaboration among academic researchers, food and drug manufacturers and philanthropists to improve human health by linking agriculture and food production to wellness and disease prevention through microbiome research. Benson pioneered study of the gut microbiome as a complex trait, demonstrating how individual host genetic factors control microbial species that make up the microbiome. Benson works closely with an interdisciplinary team of crop plant geneticists who use genetic analysis to define molecular components of grains that affect the human gut microbiome. He has received more than $25 million in competitive grant funding. He serves as a consultant and expert witness for applications of bacterial genomics and population genetics in litigation for food-borne outbreaks and product labeling.

Robert Hutkins is Emeritus Professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is a nationally recognized expert on bacteria important in fermented foods and in human health. He received his Bachelor of Science in Food Science from the University of Missouri, Master of Science in Food Science from the University of Missouri, and Doctor of Philosophy in Food Microbiology from the University of Minnesota.

Amanda Ramer-Tait is director of the Nebraska Gnotobiotic Mouse Program. Ramer-Tait has built an internationally recognized research program that focuses on how the microbes living in the human digestive tract influence human health and disease. Her work also aims to develop novel dietary interventions that alter the gut microbiota to treat chronic diseases, including obesity, metabolic syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases. Ramer-Tait has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and received research funding from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the US Department of Agriculture.

Edward Deehan is an assistant professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He conducts dietary intervention studies in humans as the main route of scientific inquiry to inform the development and commercialization of fiber-based foods and therapeutics that aim to promote health through their actions in the gastrointestinal tract. He received his Bachelor’s of Science in Dietetics at Michigan State University; Doctor of Philosophy in Nutrition and Metabolism at the University of Alberta; and Post Doctorate in Nutritional Microbiology at the University of Alberta.

Natalie Sehi is a registered dietitian who holds a master’s degree in nutrition from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She serves as youth curriculum coordinator for the Nutrition Education Program for UNL Extension. She has worked on programs focusing on nutrition, physical activity, food safety, meal planning and food resource management, and childhood obesity. She also contributes to extension programs about food, nutrition and health, specifically those dealing with nutrition and health for youth.