NCRC appointment dream come true for nutrition researcher

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009

By Emily Ford
eford@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS ó People at the N.C. Research Campus first got to know Dr. Mihai Niculescu when he spoke at a press conference in April.
At the time, the assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said he had started dreaming about doing science with the cutting-edge microscopes coming to the campus.
Now, his dreams are coming true.
Niculescu has been named to the UNC Nutrition Research Institute’s brain team. In Kannapolis, Niculescu will study epigenetics and nutrition. This research helps explain how diet sets the “switches” that control gene expression.
Specifically, he will investigate the role that a mother’s diet plays in how the brain of her fetus develops.
Work done at the Nutrition Research Institute holds great promise, “in particular for everyone expecting a radical change in the way we understand the role of nutrition in health and disease,” Niculescu said in a statement.
Niculescu earned his medical degree from Carol Davila University of Medicine in Bucharest, Romania, in 1995. He practiced medicine in Romania and was an assistant professor of physiology at Transylvania University in Brasov, Romania, from 1996 to 2000.
In 2005, he earned his Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from UNC-Chapel Hill. His research focuses on how high-fat diets alter gene expression.
The UNC Nutrition Research Institute is part of the UNC School of Public Health, and Niculescu will hold an appointment as assistant professor in UNC’s Department of Nutrition.
UNC researchers in Kannapolis hope to individualize nutrition by determining why people’s metabolisms differ and why they have different needs for nutrients.