2008 Application Catalog

Role of bioactive food components, particularly selenium, in cancer prevention.

• Evaluating the role of dietary selenium and selenoproteins in colon cancer prevention.
• Designing, implementing and participating in studies on the NIH campus with intramural collaborators utilizing molecular biologic approaches (such as microarrays) with animal model systems (transgenic and gene knockout) to identify mechanism(s) for the cancer protective effects of different bioactive food components.
• Utilizing bioinformatics to evaluate microarray data.
• Critically evaluating the ability of exfoliated cells to reflect the absorption and retention of bioactive food components and the concomitant alterations in genomic and epigenetic events

Dr. Kim received her Ph.D. from Cornell in the area of selenium, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione S-transferase. Her post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and NIH focused on cloning and the characterization of disease-related genes.

• Identification and credentialing molecular targets for nutrients in cancer prevention.
• Role of nutrients in the development of genetic variations.
• Nutritional modulation of nuclear transcription factors and cofactors.
• Nutritional modulation of cell signal transduction pathway.
• Nutritional modulation of cell cycle.
• Utilization of gene technologies in nutritional research.

Impact of dietary essential and non-essential components on genetic pathways associated with cancer prevention.

• In-depth review of dietary nutrients and their potential applications in cancer prevention.
• Identification and validation of biomarkers for assessing dietary intakes, biological effects or susceptibility factors associated with cancer.
• Influence of genetic polymorphisms on nutrient utilization and ultimately cancer risk.
• Analysis of key genes involved in cell proliferation and apoptosis.

Impact of diet on DNA methylation and how aberrant DNA methylation processes influence cancer risk, identification of dietary patterns and dietary factors, including dietary ingredients in dietary supplements, that modulate cancer risk, in particular the identification of gene-nutrient interactions that influence cancer risk.

• In-depth review of dietary essential and non-essential components and their potential applications in cancer prevention.
• Influence of genetic polymorphisms on nutrient utilization and ultimately cancer risk.
• Assessment of the impact of selected dietary factors on genetic pathways using genomic and proteonomic technologies.

Biochemistry, toxicology, genetics, natural products, chemical structure activity, and protein chemistry.

• Phytoestrogens: laboratory investigation of the nutritional genetic interaction of these compounds with gene expression in collaboration with the USDA.
• Phytoestrogens: literature collection and evaluation of efficacy, toxicity and safety data on phytoestrogens as protective and or preventive agents against chemo- and radiotherapy.
• In-depth review of dietary nutrients and their potential applications in cancer prevention.

Public Health Applications to Nutrition.

• Evaluation of existing data on nutrigenomics training for pre- and post-doctoral individuals.