Bio
Ph.D., microbiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas, 1992; joined UNL faculty in 1996. 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. Spearheading research for the Discovery Program of the Nebraska Food for Health Center, 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 and in 2019 was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for Neogen’s genomics operations and serves as a consultant and expert witness for applications of bacterial genomics and population genetics in litigation for foodborne outbreaks and product labeling.
Bio
Ph.D., immunobiology, Iowa State University, 2006; joined UNL faculty in 2012. Director, 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 (known as the gut microbiota) 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. She also co-directs the Complex Biosystems PhD program at UNL and teaches courses on immunology, microbiology and functional foods.
Bio
Ph.D., biochemistry and molecular biology, Fudan University, China, 2004; postdoctoral training, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; joined UNL faculty in 2016. He uses live cell imaging, multi-omics techniques and mouse phenotyping to investigate how metabolic stress affects healthy humans, particularly regarding the role of non-protein coding RNAs in the aging of cells and metabolic diseases such as obesity and atherosclerosis. His long-term goal is to improve understanding of the connection between obesity and cardiovascular disease risk, leading to the development of more effective therapies. He has published more than 30 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He also teaches a biochemistry course.
Bio
Dr. Edward Deehan is an Assistant Professor of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Professor Deehan 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.