New additions at NC Research Campus | Business

KANNAPOLIS - The UNC Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis, NC continues to increase its activity and research by hiring several new researchers as faculty and staff. 

These recent additions are evidence that the NRI is continuing strong growth trends, broadening its scope of research, and underscoring the significance of its studies. 

As the latest faculty addition, Fatimah L.C. Jackson, Ph.D., a prominent anthropologist, joined the NRI in September, 2011 as a Visiting Professor from UNC Chapel Hill. 

At the NRI, Dr. Jackson will continue her work developing a tool for modeling population substructure in disease susceptibility called Ethnogenetic Layering. 

Using this tool, she hopes to identify more immediate and individual intervention strategies to address health disparities among African Americans. 

Over the course of her career, Dr. Jackson has worked extensively among diverse African and African American groups particularly in West (Liberia), Central (Cameroon), North (Egypt and Sudan) and East Africa (Tanzania and Rwanda).  According to Dr. Jackson, most researchers have approached the African American community as a monolith, treating a highly diverse population as if it were uniform and then inadvertently selecting a subset to represent all African Americans. 

In fact, African Americans are derived from diverse areas of West and West Central Africa.  Differing proportions of Africans from these regions were transported to the Americans during the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

This original diversity translates today into an African American population that has different regional genetic ancestries, diverse cultural practices, and sometimes different frequencies of certain health disparities.  As enslaved individuals from Africa were transported to the United States, they were settled regionally in ways that created a degree of substructure or stratification within the subsequent African American communities. Jackson’s tool, Ethnogenetic Layering, taps into that historic subdivision to identify local cultural and biological risk factors for contemporary health inequities.

For African Americans, regional origin is significant for generational DNA inheritance, and therefore gene expression, which can manifest as susceptibility to certain diseases.  As a prime example, there appears to be a higher susceptibility among eastern and central North Carolina populations to hypertension. 

By focusing on the salt content of their diet, in combination with the discovery of salt retaining genes in their bodies (which resemble the DNA of people coming from regions of Africa very close to the equator), Dr. Jackson may be able to discover the original genetic and dietary sources of the hypertension, as well as develop sustainable interventions for better health.

In her research, Jackson wants to balance the technical aspects of genetic heritage with the cultural and environmental impacts.  “Foods, for instance,” she elaborates, “that are eaten by different segments of African Americans may be metabolized somewhat differently.  I will explore how diets and genetic heritage contribute to those differences, some of which are traceable back to regional origin in Africa.” 

This will provide clues to diseases, receptions of medicine, and novel intervention strategies.   Ultimately, these intervention strategies may help mitigate certain health risks including the increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and some types of cancer in particular groups of African Americans.

While conducting research in Africa, Dr. Jackson cofounded the first human DNA bank on the continent in Cameroon. The bank has archived more than 5,000 DNA samples, which will enable her to use advanced technologies in epigenetics, available at the NRI, to explore differences between individuals with known environmental exposures to gene-influencing compounds.  “I look forward to partnering with other professionals at the NRI to explore whether certain aspects of biological diversity among African Americans are influenced by their epigenetics,” explains Jackson.  “The integration of the latest technology together with the scientists’ expertise presents a comprehensive approach that drew me to the NRI.”

NRI Director, Steven H. Zeisel, M.D., Ph.D. is pleased to have Dr. Jackson join the NRI team, as he shares, “The studies of health disparities among African Americans directly align to the NRI mission of individualized nutrition.  We are thrilled that Dr. Jackson has chosen to conduct her research with our team.”

Fatimah L.C. Jackson is a biological anthropologist who received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Cornell University. She was Professor and Distinguished Scholar Teacher at the University of Maryland at College Park.  In July 2009, she became Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and served as Director of the Institute of African American Research (IAAR). She has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar and is the recipient of numerous research awards.

The NRI also welcomes additional newly hired Postdoctoral Research Associates and lab staff, including the following:

·     Sheau Ching Chai, Ph.D., R.D. – Dr. Chai is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Registered Dietitian who previously has studied the role of dietary supplements in bone and cardiovascular health.  Now with the NRI, she is extending her research to the area of functional foods and neuroscience.  She works in the lab of Dr. Carol Cheatham, who specializes in the effects of nutrition on pediatric brain development.

·     Jie “Jacky” Zhu, Ph.D. – After earning his Ph.D. from Wuhan University’s College of Medicine in China, Dr. Zhu joined the NRI to study folate metabolism through biochemical, genetic, and epigenetic mechanisms.  He will be supporting the NRI Nutrigenetics Laboratory, led by primary investigator, Dr. Martin Kohlmeier, and will focus on leveraging recent genetic technology to translate DNA detail into practical clinical uses. 

·     Sarah King, Ph.D. – Dr. King earned her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences and Public Health from Harvard University.  She is now studying choline metabolism in the lab of NRI Director, Dr. Steven Zeisel.  The goal of her current project is to understand how genes involved in choline metabolism and synthesis are regulated during brain development.

·     Corinne Zeller-Knuth, Ph.D. – As NRI Postdoctoral Research Associate, Dr. Zeller-Knuth studies the regulation of certain gut peptides and how they affect control of body weight.  She works with Dr. Andrew Swick, exploring how the digestive system senses food and impacts appetite and metabolism.  Prior to joining the NRI, Corinne studied the effects of stress on RNA decay at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. 

·     Fuli “Tracey” He – As a graduate student earning her M.S. in Nutritional Biochemistry from UNC-Chapel Hill, Tracey supports the Niculescu lab at the NRI, focusing on epigenetic influence on brain development, specifically aging of the brain.  Her current work involves how blueberry polyphenol diets alter gene methylation and expression.

The UNC NRI is proud to announce these additions, which help provide a positive contribution to the local economy through increased employment.  The studies of these new team members enhance not only the research of the NRI scientists, but also the strength and stability of the NRI in our economic community. 

Dr. Steven Zeisel, NRI Director, shares, “We welcome the new members of our team, and expect this level of growth to continue.  The NRI is happy that we have the ability to be a positive influence in the economic development through our growth.  Our increasing employment trend at the NRI is a clear indication of our solid foundation and growing success, and we are proud to be moving forward as an active member in the state and in this community.”