Genes & Nutrition

Featured series: Alternative models in nutrigenomics

We are proud to present our newest thematic series on alternative models in nutrigenomics, edited by Uwe Wenzel and Fabio Virgili. In spite of well-defined protocols aiming to minimize pain, distress, and death, animal research raises ethical and other concerns. These practical issues increase the obvious uncertainties of translating animal data and results to humans. This collection of articles is dedicated to alternative experimental models that may eventually contribute to solving, at least in part, these critical issues.

Featured editorial: Publishing with our journal

The intent of this editorial is to provide guidance for improving the quality of systems nutrition research. As our climate changes and population growth increases to the expected nine billion by 2050, our field of research must continue to produce high-quality, reliable results that can be translated into health-promoting action. Genes & Nutrition remains committed to promoting and publishing this research in a timely fashion to improve nutrition knowledge for applications for personal and public health.

Featured conference: NuGOweek

The 16th edition of NuGOweek, the annual scientific meeting of our affiliate, will be held from the 9th through the 12th of September, in Agroscope, Bern, Switzerland. This year's theme will be "From foodomics to nutrigenomics – Translating food composition data into healthy diets". For more information, please visit the website 

Editors' profiles

Giuditta Perozzi is a Senior Scientist at the Food and Nutrition Research Centre in Rome, Italy. She received the Italian University Degree (Laurea) in Biology at the University of Rome, and her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Rochester, NY (USA). Her research interests in the molecular nutrition field have focused on nutrient-dependent gene regulation in intestinal epithelial cells, using in vivo (rodents) and in vitro cell models to investigate micronutrient-gene interactions and zinc transporter expression.

Fabio Virgili is Senior Scientist at the Food and Nutrition Research Centre of the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics in Roma, Italy. He graduated in Biology at the University of Rome and completed his Ph.D. on “Cellular and tissue pathology” at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy. He has been appointed as Professor of Biochemistry in the Faculty of Sciences at the University Roma-Tre, in Rome and he participates to the board of teachers of different Master and Ph.D. courses. His research is focused on the transcriptional control of gene expression and cellular response to different stimuli in the early stages of degenerative pathologies by molecules of nutritional interest.

Jim Kaput is the Head of the Clinical Translation Unit in the newly created Nestle Institute of Health Sciences. He is Professeur Visite’ in the Service d’endorcrinologie, diabetologie et metabolosime du CHUV. University of Lausanne, Visiting Professor at the Adinovo Center for Genetic & Genomic Medicine Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China), and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Genetics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (USA). His immediate past position (11.2007 to 7.2011) was as Director of the Division of Personalized Nutrition and Medicine at the U.S. FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research (Jefferson, AR). He received his PhD from Colorado State University in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.