Welcome to our Featured Employer series where we feature different companies/organizations in the food, nutrition, and public health field!
What do they do?
The Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) is one of the largest research centers studying aging and its relationship to nutrition and physical activity. It is supported by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Run by both the USDA and Tufts University, the HNRCA is where graduate and post-doctoral students train in healthy aging and physical activity research. Many of the scientists at the HNRCA are also faculty members of Tufts University.
There are 14 research directions supplemented and supported by six core units.
Research Directions:
- Bone Metabolism – how bone and muscle health can be affected by diet quality in older adults.
- Cardiovascular Nutrition – how dietary factors can affect different risk factors of dietary diseases.
- Energy Metabolism – how lifestyle interventions (energy intake regulation) can reduce the obesity epidemic.
- Neuroscience and Aging – the affect of nutrients and bioactive compounds on improved brain function in older adults.
- Nutrition and Cancer Biology – how the anti-inflammatory effects of bioactive compounds in fruit and vegetables can prevent carcinogen-related inflammation.
- Nutritional Epidemiology – how lifestyle, environment, and genetic factors affect nutritional status, as well as how nutritional status can affect the development of chronic disease.
- Nutrition, Exercise Physiology and Sarcopenia – the potential of nutrition and physical activity interventions to prevent impaired motor performance.
- Nutrition and Genomics – the gene-diet relationship, particularly in the case of cardiovascular diseases.
- Nutritional Immunology – the relationship between dietary components and immune and inflammatory responses, as well as the interaction between dietary components and other environmental factors.
- Nutrition and Vision Research – methods of delaying age-related eye diseases.
- Obesity and Metabolism – the basis of obesity from the molecular, cellular, and systemic perspectives.
- Vitamins and Carcinogenesis – how one’s diet can change cancer-causing pathways.
- Vitamin K – the benefits of increased vitamin K intake.
Core Units:
- Biostatistics and Data Management – ensuring the most appropriate methods for data analysis are used and missing data is properly handled.
- Comparative Biology – providing researchers with quality animals for experiments and maintaining the facilities and services to make sure animal-related experimentation is performed humanely and scientifically.
- Dietary Assessment – providing insights and support for dietary data assessment.
- Mass Spectrometry – ensuring the quantification and identification of vitamins, amino acids, nucleic acids, lipids, fatty acids, retinoids, carotenoids, antioxidants, peptides, and proteins are performed in reliable methods.
- Metabolic Research – ensuring IRB compliance for all experiments, reliability of study-specific diets, and recruitment of volunteers.
- Nutrition Evaluation Lab – providing biochemical testing.
What’s their Why?
The HNRCA’s mission is to “promote healthy aging through nutrition science to empower people seeking to enjoy long, active, and independent lives.”
Interview with MS student Aoife O’Flaherty:
Aoife is a second year Nutrition Interventions, Communication, and Behavior Change student at the Friedman School of Nutrition. She was a graduate assistant in HNRCA from 2021-2022.
- Tell us about your role at the HNRCA. How does it connect to your personal and professional interests?
I worked in the epidemiology department at the HNRCA, coding Food Frequency Questionnaires for the Framingham Heart Study. Each FFQ had been completed by a participant so our job was to go through and code the responses so they could be used by the researchers working on the study. This was great experience to understand the ins and outs of FFQs, learn about what people are eating in a particular population, and have a small part in a well-known study. - What are the necessary skills needed for your position?
Be detail-oriented and meticulous. It was important to pay close attention to avoid making a mistake or missing something. - What do you enjoy about your role? What do you find challenging?
I enjoyed being a part of the Framingham Heart study and getting extensive experience working with an FFQ. The biggest challenge was maintaining close concentration to the questionnaires for long periods of time while remaining diligent.
