NIH again funds UNC Nutrition Obesity Research Center

The Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) in the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health will receive a $5.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund another five years of research, the School announced today. The award is the third time NIH has provided 5-year funding for the center.

 

“We are proud that the National Institutes of Health has selected UNC as one of 12 centers of excellence in nutrition researchers, recognizing that our nutrition research is among the best in the country,” said Steven Zeisel, MD, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of nutrition and pediatrics and director of NORC and of UNC’s Nutrition Research Institute, located in Kannapolis, N.C.

 

“This award supports the research of 150 investigators at the Chapel Hill and Kannapolis UNC campuses who study obesity and nutrition-related diseases, providing essential core facilities that all can make use of,” Zeisel said. “We are excited that this award also contains funding for a mobile van that can bring equipment needed for studying body composition to research sites that are off campus in communities all around North Carolina.” Since the NORC was started in 1999, it has provided a forum for researchers in the laboratory and in community, population-based and clinical studies to share ideas and information as they develop cutting-edge nutritional sciences and obesity-related research.

 

Specifically the NORC aims to increase the impact and presence of nutrition and obesity research at UNC. The center provides resources and leadership to enhance and extend the university’s existing obesity research in basic science, epidemiology and intervention in nutrition and obesity; enhances nutrition education for health professionals and nutrition scientists, including the nutrition training programs at UNC; and helps translate findings from nutrition and obesity research so that the general public can use this information to improve their health.

 

Center membership includes investigators from 36 departments and divisions, and five schools on campus (public health, medicine, nursing, pharmacy and arts and sciences).

 

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.