Detailed Biography:

I am a nutritional epidemiologist and straddle both the division of General Internal Medicine/Health Services Research in the Department of Medicine at UCLA and the Department of Biological Chemistry. This reflects my experience in human clinical and epidemiologic research and my focus on translation of new laboratory developments (specifically biomarkers) into the arena of strong, valid human etiologic and intervention studies. I have 30 years of experience in the study of diet and disease that spans two continents. Most pertinent to this proposal is my experience in training and translational cooperative research in Europe, as a PI of European Community collaborations, as the founder of a WHO Collaborating Center with a translational mission, as the developer and leader of a training grant that spanned three departments and 3 institutions in North Carolina (UNC, NIEHS and the EPA. I was recruited by Amgen to develop, as a senior director, its department of Global Epidemiology and translate pharmacologic effects in the context of the natural history of numerous diseases, and have a rare skill set, of value in the academic environment, that involves addressing to the need for rapid translation of new scientific findings into a clinical setting under inflexible and demanding timelines. At UNC, I was the program director for nutritional epidemiology and leader of a training program and NCI-sponsored training grant in that field. I served as the director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Core for Nutritional Epidemiology at UNC which supported dietary assessment in population studies across the campus. I have served as a permanent and temporary NIH reviewer for multiple study sections, often in the capacity as the nutrition reviewer. My research currently involves the development and testing of novel approaches to bringing dietary information to large patient populations, and to large population studies that can support gene-nutrient interaction research. We were among the first to program 24 hour recalls and diet history questionnaires, to incorporate audio and food images for portion size estimation in these programs and are currently the first group to test the feasibility and validity of conducting multiple web based recalls. We are deeply involved in doubly labeled water based validation of reporting and reporting bias by race, gender and weight status. other research interests involve the application of dietary assessment to the understanding of disease etiology especially in the areas of diet and brain function, anticarcinogens, heterocyclic amines and prostate and breast cancer incidence and survival, and the relationship of diet to atherosclerosis. I have published over 170 original papers as well as numerous book chapters and monographs. As a nutrition advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) for 10 years and as the founding director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Nutritional Epidemiology in Berlin, I feel I have the necessary skills to consult on this project. I am also the founding North American Editor of the journal Public Health Nutrition, Associate Editor of Nutrition and Cancer and sit on numerous other editorial boards.