Dr. Steven Zeisel delivered the 2009 W.O. Atwater Lecture, an honor awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service.
Zeisel delivered his presentation Tuesday to more than 8,000 participants at the Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans.
Zeisel directs the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute at the N.C. Research Campus in Kannapolis. His lecture introduced the mission of the NRI, to individualize the study of human nutrition, to the conference.
His lecture was titled, “Individualized Nutrition: How Genes, Epigenetics and Sex Interact to Create a Dietary Requirement for the Nutrient Choline.”
The Atwater Lecture was established in 1968 to honor Wilbur Olin Atwater and to recognize scientists who have made unique contributions toward improving the diet and nutrition of people around the world.
Zeisel also runs both the Clinical Nutrition Research Unit and the Center of Excellence in Children’s Nutrition in Chapel Hill, and he maintains research projects in multiple laboratories.
He is most widely known for his study of the nutrient choline, in particular its importance in human health and fetal brain development.