NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The Salk Institute today said that it will use a $5.5 million grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to create a center to study nutritional genomics.
The La Jolla, Calif.-based institute will use the funding to launch the Salk Center for Nutritional Genomics, which will study the effects of nutrition and genetic interactions on metabolism, the immune system, cancer, and diabetes.
The money will be used to fund a metabolic core facility and an interdisciplinary fellows program, and will include the study of gene networks based on DNA sequencing.
"Given the fact that metabolism has clearly established itself as a common denominator in many research fields, I am very pleased that our scientists will have the opportunity to collaborate further and delve even deeper into this vitally important area of biological science," Salk President William Brody said in a statement.
The nutritional genomics center will "enable our researchers to develop new approaches to understand the metabolic changes associated with Type I and Type II diabetes, cancer and aging," Brody added.
"The study of metabolic control will provide fundamental answers that have profound implications for human disease and its treatment," Marc Montminy, a professor at Salk's Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, added.
"Our scientists look at the genomics of metabolic control as the hub of a wheel whose individual spokes lead out to new insights into other disorders such as diabetes, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and aging," Montminy continued.