The UCLA Center for Society and Genetics
Second Annual Symposium:

Nurturing Our Nature: 
Genomics, Diet and Nutrition

February 8, 2004
Grand Horizon Room, Sunset Conference Center
UCLA

Program Moderator: Gregory Stock, Director of UCLA’s Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society, Visiting Professor, Dept. of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health

As we decipher human biology and personal genetic screenings become readily feasible, we will face great challenges in interpreting and using the information. Some of the potential medical and healthcare implications of tailoring drugs to our individual biochemistries have been widely debated, but what of the broader personalized adjustments to lifestyle and nutrition that may become feasible. Is this promise hype or reality? What does it hold for us?

In the decades ahead, will we use information about our genetics to shape our diets, select nutritional supplements, and adjust our lifestyle choices, or will we do little more than follow the broad dicta of today: Exercise. Don’t smoke. Eat more fruits and vegetables. Cut down on meat, sugar, and saturated fats.

When useful personalized health information becomes available, how will we access it? How will we cut through the fog of conflicting messages and figure out what to do? Will government, the media, and industry obstruct or facilitate such communication? Will the lines continue to blur between drugs, nutritional supplements, and foods? How best can society foster healthy diets and behavior? And what does recent research tell us about the diets and lifestyles we should be following to maintain our vitality and reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other diseases?

Nurturing our Nature, sponsored by UCLA’s Center for Society and Genetics, is the second program in a series of annual symposia on controversial issues emerging from the genomics revolution. The program, which features world renowned experts, was made possible by a pilot grant from UCLA’s Office of the Chancellor. The February 8th event is free and open to the public. The proceedings will be captured on video and streamed over the Internet.

Dietary Deficiencies, Vitamins and Public Health

Streaming Video of Talk

Bruce Ames, Ph.D. is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center, University of California, Berkley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was on their Commission on Life Sciences. He was also a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute (1976-82). His many awards include the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prize (1983), the Tyler Prize for environmental achievement (1985), the Gold Medal Award of the American Institute of Chemists (1991), the Glenn Foundation Award of the Gerontological Society of America (1992), the Lovelace Institute’s Award for Excellence in Environmental Health Research (1995), the Honda Foundation Prize for Ecotoxicology (1996) and the Japan Prize (1997). He is co-author of the

Food, Nutrition and Health in the Genomic Era

Streaming Video of Talk

David Heber, MD, PhD, FACP, FACN is the Director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. He graduated Harvard Medical School in 1973, and received his Ph.D. in Physiology from UCLA in 1978. Dr. Heber has been on the faculty of the UCLA School of Medicine since 1978 and is currently Professor of Medicine and Public Health, founding Chief of the Division of Clinical Nutrition in the Department of Medicine, and the Founding Director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition at UCLA. Dr. Heber is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology and Metabolism by the American Board of Internal Medicine and in Clinical Nutrition by the American Board of Nutrition. He directs the NIH Center for Dietary Supplement Research in Botanicals, the NCI-funded Clinical Nutrition Research Unit and the NIH Nutrition and Obesity Training Grants at UCLA. Dr. Heber is a Director of the American Board of Nutrition and past chair of the Education Committee of the American Society of Clinical Nutrition. He has written two professional texts including Nutritional Oncology, (Academic Press,1999), and is the author of “What Color is Your Diet?” (Harper Collins/Regan, 2001) and The L. A. Shape Diet (Harper Collins/Regan, 2004).

The Politics of Food and Nutrition

Streaming Video of Talk

Marion Nestle, Ph.D., has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University since Fall 1988. Her degrees include a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on analysis of the scientific, social, cultural, and economic factors that influence the development, implementation, and acceptance of federal dietary guidance policies. She is the author of “Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health” (University of California Press, 2002) and “Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism” University of California Press, 2003). In 2003, Food Politics won awards from the Association for American Publishers (outstanding professional and scholarly title in nursing and allied health), James Beard Foundation (literary), and World Hunger Year (Harry Chapin media).

Alzheimer’s, Homocysteine and Healthy Aging

Streaming Video of Talk

Irwin H. Rosenberg, M.D. is a Senior Scientist and University Professor at Tufts University. His research focus is on nutrition and aging; folate nutriture; and the relationship between homocysteine, B vitamin nutriture, vascular disease and cognitive decline. He is the Dean for Nutrition Sciences, Tufts University, the Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition, Tufts University. He is also Editor of Nutrition Reviews.

Supplements: Challenges and Opportunities

Stephen E. Straus, M.D., was appointed the first director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in October 1999.

An internationally recognized expert in clinical research and clinical trials, Dr. Straus is also Senior Investigator in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He has extensive basic and clinical research experience related to many conditions, for which there are alternative or complementary remedies, including chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, HIV/AIDS, chronic hepatitis B virus, and genital herpes infections and chronic post-herpetic pain. He has an extensive background in investigations of the molecular biology, pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of human viral infections and immunologic diseases. Among his accomplishments in these areas are his demonstration that acyclovir suppresses recurrent genital and oral herpes, and the characterization of a previously unrecognized genetically determined disease, the autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome.

Dr. Gregory Stock is the Director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at UCLA’s School of Public Health. In this role he explores critical technologies poised to have large impacts on humanity’s future and the shape of medical science. His goal has been to bring about a broad public debate on these technologies and their implications, leading to wise public policies surrounding their realization. Of particular interest to the program are the implications for society, medicine, and business of the human genome project and associated developments emerging from today’s revolution in molecular genetics and bioinformatics.

Stock’s 2002 book, Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future with Houghton Mifflin, won the Kistler Book Prize for Science books and was nominated for a Wired Rave Award. Among his other books are Engineering The Human Germline for Oxford University Press, Metaman, for Simon & Schuster, and the best seller, The Book of Questions, which has been translated into seventeen languages, and is now in its fifty-fifth printing.