Nutrition researcher’s new book sets higher standard in field of epigenetics
| June 23, 2011 | |
|
A new book co-edited by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher Mihai Niculescu, MD, PhD, provides a comprehensive exploration of dietary impacts on epigenetics and offers the most in-depth coverage of the subject to date.Epigenetics is the study of the mechanisms that cause inheritable genetic material to be altered without changing DNA sequence.
Dr. Mihai Niculescu
Niculescu, assistant professor of nutrition at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, is based at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis, N.C. His Nutrition in Epigenetics, available this week, is the first text to feature nutrition as a primary component in the field. The book focuses on epigenetic inheritance – or the transmission of parental epigenetic patterns to subsequent generations – and how nutrition may impact this transmission. Niculescu and co-editor Paul Haggarty, PhD, of University of Aberdeen (Scotland), highlight the role that nutrition plays in the regulation of these processes. The text also incorporates a broad set of perspectives by many renowned international researchers, including epigeneticists from Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Chile, Romania, Finland and elsewhere. The new work directly reflects Niculescu’s research at the NRI, where he specializes in the study of epigenetics and nutrition. Niculescu investigates the roles that maternal obesity and omega-3 fatty acids have upon the epigenetic regulation of fetal and postnatal brain development. He also studies mice to show that maternal obesity and high-fat diets during pregnancy negatively influence the activation of genes required for brain development and can alter the lifelong gene expression of offspring. In addition, his research shows that mothers fed a high-fat diet during pregnancy had offspring with lower fetal body weight and higher rates of miscarriage. Originally from Romania, Niculescu received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy (Bucharest) and was assistant professor in the Department of Human Physiology at the School of Medicine in Brasov, Romania. In 2005, he earned his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and now leads the study of epigenetics at the NRI. UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
