 | New Institute focuses on food and health
8/14/2007 2:40 PMNew U of M Institute will focus on Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives
Interdisciplinary research and outreach from areas as wide-ranging
as medicine, agriculture and exercise will be brought together in the
University of Minnesota’s new Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute.
The
institute, which grew out of a one of president Robert Bruininks’
intiatives, provides a way to capitalize on the work already being done
at the university, according to Mindy Kurzer, a professor in the
department of food science and nutrition and the new director of the
institute. The University of Minnesota is one of only a few
universities in the United States with agriculture, nutrition,
medicine, public health, exercise science and veterinary medicine
programs all on the same campus.
Formalizing the
interdisciplinary work into an institute is intended to help stimulate
more collaborative projects and grant funding, as well as increasing
the visibility of existing programs.
“When you think of food
and health, you should immediately think of the University of
Minnesota,” said Kurzer. “For example, the university does world-class
research in the areas of obesity, food economics and policy, food
safety and nutrition, but this research takes place in many parts of
the university. The institute will serve as a focal point for those
activities.”
In addition to research, the institute will have a
strong outreach component, including efforts already under way in
University of Minnesota Extension and the Minnesota Institute on
Sustainable Agriculture, as well as the university’s food service and
wellness programs.
Kurzer says her first task is to convene a
working group to set priorities for the new institute, a process she
believes will be complete by the end of 2007.
While the new
institute will have its administrative home in the College of Food,
Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, it is a collaboration
involving four other units: the School of Public Health, the Medical
School, the College of Veterinary Medicine and University of Minnesota
Extension.
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