Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
410 MRAK HALL
DAVIS,CA 95616-8671
Performing Department
Nutrition
Non Technical Summary
This proposal is for a two-part program. On the first day, a large conference will be convened for nutrition professionals such as registered dietitians, leaders in the nutrition communities (e.g., SNAP, Cooperative Extension, School Lunch Program, CDFA), delegates from conference co-sponsors, University researchers and graduate students, and members of the media. On the second day, a closed roundtable will be held, comprised of invited speakers from the first day's conference, plus additional research scientists and members or delegates from conference co-sponsors, with the goal of identifying key challenges and opportunities, along future forecasting about the state of the science five years hence.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of the conference is to increase understanding and awareness of the unique nutritional properties of select nuts and berries as important components of a healthy diet. A related goal is to identify key issues that will allow rapid and innovative progress to be made in future research studies.The rationale for this two-part conference is to highlight the recent research advances about select nuts and berries, and to develop and publish a concept paper addressing the challenges and opportunities for future directions. Since the majority of published research on nuts and berries centers around their oxidant defense and vascular benefits, this has been tentatively noted as the main theme of the conference, but other areas of study may also be included, such as potential benefits for the gut microbiome, skin, cognitive function, immune support, etc., which can alter the final title of the project.
Project Methods
This proposal is for a two-part program. On the first day, a large conference will be convened for nutrition professionals such as registered dietitians, leaders in the nutrition communities (e.g., SNAP, Cooperative Extension, School Lunch Program, CDFA), delegates from conference co-sponsors, University researchers and graduate students, and members of the media. On the second day, a closed roundtable will be held, comprised of invited speakers from the first day's conference, plus additional research scientists and members or delegates from conference co-sponsors, with the goal of identifying key challenges and opportunities, along future forecasting about the state of the science five years hence.The first day conference will consist of six lectures by scientists involved in research on the select nut or berry. Each lecture will be 40 minutes in length, which includes five minutes for questions. Three lectures will be presented in the morning and three will be given in the afternoon. A panel discussion for further questions and discussion among the presenters will follow each of the morning and afternoon sessions. A lunch break and post-conference reception will allow attendees to interact with the speakers and conference co-sponsors in a more personal manner and address detailed questions that may not be suitable to discuss in the time-limited panel.The approach for the second-day roundtable will be to convene the invited speakers, USDA representatives, industry delegates and research scientists in order to identify gaps in the research portfolio on the selected nuts or berries, and to provide insight into solutions about the future challenges needed to stimulate rapid, innovative progress. Each speaker and conference co-chairs will provide prepared remarks, followed by questions and discussion. Following the conference, the speakers will be asked to provide a two- to four-page written document, with references, to be compiled and circulated for editing and approval by all authors, after which the manuscript will be submitted for publication in a leading nutrition journal.