Clinical Methods for Nutrition and Obesity Research Course

PROJECT SUMMARY Obesity is a chronic disease that affects more than 650 million adults worldwide and has been acknowledged as a leading cause of death in the U.S. Obesity also predisposes people to comorbid conditions like diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and some cancers. Efforts to understand and

manage this complex disease have met with modest success yet obesity and particularly severe obesity continues to grow in prevalence at an alarming rate in both adults and children. With the formation of Nutrition and Obesity Research Center infrastructures, it has become more frequent for clinical research cores to offer

turn-key services. This affords exemplary standardization and rigor for clinical procedures used in obesity and nutrition research; however, it leaves an unintended training gap wherein the next generation of obesity and nutrition scientists may not have hands-on experience with the methods or understand how to work with the

generated data. To address this gap, we plan to host an annual, 5-day course entitled: “Clinical Methods for Nutrition and Obesity Research” at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. The program will take advantage of the cutting-edge technologies and the wide range of research efforts related to obesity

and nutrition available at the Center. During this 5-year grant, approximately 180 postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty attendees will learn about both the gold standard and the cutting-edge clinical research methodologies for conducting obesity and nutrition related research. The course will utilize both senior and

early career investigators to deliver a mixture of brief didactic presentations accompanied by direct observation or actual experience with experimental procedures and handling of actual data from the Pennington/Louisiana NORC biorepository. The course will consist of 8 modules including: 1) Pre-course orientation and reading, 2)

Responsible conduct of clinical research, 3) Body composition, 4) Carbohydrate metabolism, 5) Exercise testing, 6) Energy requirements & energy expenditure, 7) Vulnerable populations, and 8) Career development. Each method-focused module begins with a didactic presentation on the method theory by a senior instructor

who is a leader in the field. Next, an early career instructor (postdoctoral fellow or assistant professor) who has been on the front lines of using the method will demonstrate and conduct the procedure on course attendee(s) who volunteer to undergo the procedure. Finally, the senior and early-career instructor team will collectively

lead a data analysis workshop. This course will train the next generation of scientists from around the country, particularly those from underrepresented groups in the biomedical sciences, and will allow us to foster collaborations between Louisiana scientists and others across the country who are interested in obesity and

nutrition research.