A.S.P.E.N. offers a research workshop every year which features presentations from the foremost researchers in clinical nutrition. This day-long program is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to examine, with influential leaders, a core clinical nutrition research issue.

The 2012 Research Workshop is directed by Steven Zeisel, MD, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor, Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Director, University of North Carolina Nutrition Research Institute. This course will bring you up to date on how new methods in nutrigenomic and metabolomic profiling are being used to enhance research on the relationships between diet and health.

Abstract:
We are beginning to understand how genetic variation and epigenetic events alter requirements for, and responses to nutrients (nutrigenomics). At the same time, methods for profiling almost all of the products of metabolism in a single sample of blood or urine are being developed (metabolomics). Relationships between diet and nutrigenomic/metabolomic profiles, and between those profiles and health, have become important components of research and could change clinical practice in nutrition. Most nutrition studies assume that all people have average dietary requirements and often do not plan for a large subset of people who differ in requirements for a nutrient. Large variance in responses that occur when such a population exists can result in statistical analyses that argue for a null effect. If nutrition studies could better identify responders and differentiate them from non-responders based on nutrigenomic/metabolomic profiles, the sensitivity to detect differences between groups could be greatly increased, and resulting dietary recommendations appropriately targeted.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Examine how metabolomic profiling can be used in research on energy metabolism
2. Examine how nutrigenomic profiling can be used in research on human dietary requirements
3. Describe the use of genomic methods to characterize the gut microbiome
4. Reflect on the role of diet in gene expression
5. Discuss nutrients and gene expression in cardiovascular disease
6. Identify research priorities related to nutrigenomics and metabolomics