A new lecture series focused on the nutrition and health sciences will open April 26 with a presentation on the impacts of alcohol and fat on the liver.

The talk, 2 to 3 p.m. April 26 in the Home Economics Building, Room 11, will be led by Dr. Gregory J. Gores, executive dean for research, professor of medicine and physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Gores’ lab established the mechanisms behind the high exposure of fatty acids to the liver and demonstrated that the “Western Diet Animal Model” is responsible for progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The disorder is the most common liver disease in the world and its complications contribute to the need for liver transplants.

Gores also helped unravel the fundamental cellular processes contributing to liver injury, from both fat and alcohol, and is focusing on the mechanisms that allow treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

The talk, “How the Liver is Assaulted by Fat and Alcohol: Implications for Students, Health Professionals and Researchers,” is free and open to the public. It will launch a new seminar series organized by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences and College of Education and Human Sciences.

Support for the talk is provided by the Faculty Senate’s convocations committee and Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences.