People and Facilities
IFSH Nutrition Expertise
IFSH's Nutrition Team is leading the development of food-based solutions for improving public health and reducing disease risk through science that validates the impact of health promoting foods on clinically relevant endpoints. Our nutrition science specialists offer extensive expertise in conducting human clinical studies to determine the health benefits of a variety of foods, focusing on safety and efficacy, dose response, bioavailability, and mechanisms by which food compounds promote enhanced nutrition. IFSH’s Nutrition Team delivers real knowledge to the food industry, facilitating path-to-market strategies for members through early and ongoing regulatory interaction in the emerging healthy foods field.
Facilities and Laboratories
IFSH Clinical Nutrition Research Center (CNRC). Located at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Chicago campus at Research Park is IFSH’s Clinical Nutrition Research Center, a 5,000 sq. ft. facility designed and dedicated for the purpose of conducting outpatient clinical research trials. The CNRC is resourced with appropriate clinical, laboratory and food service support for executing nutrition-related clinical trials. Facilities include accommodations for on-site subject screening and training, a metabolic kitchen for test food preparation and distribution, multiple private examination and consultation rooms, and stations adapted for phlebotomy or catheter implantation and management.
The CNRC also offers rooms dedicated and equipped for vitals assessment, flow-mediated dilation assessment, anthropometrics, among a number of other assessments. Two consumption rooms have been designed: one for group dining and another (separate) room for food intake, appetite and sensory evaluation. The latter is a dedicated room equipped with individual feeding stations and is light and temperature controlled. The facility contains a separate room for specimen processing and storage and analysis of fresh sample specimens.
IFSH Applied Chemistry Laboratory (Bedford Park). This newly renovated 1,000 sq. ft. applied chemistry lab supports research in nutrition and chemical contaminants, including investigations into the properties of food matrices related to the content and profile of antioxidant compounds and their effect on human health, as well as food safety related contaminant issues, such as acrylamide, melamine, pesticides and mycotoxins in food that may help improve food processing mitigation strategies. IFSH member Agilent Technologies is a collaborative partner in the renovation and has outfitted the lab with several pieces of high-tech equipment, including instrumentation used to conduct phenolic antioxidant research.
IFSH Nutrition and Biochemistry Laboratory (Bedford Park). A 700 sq. ft. nutrition and biochemistry laboratory is equipped with basic and specialized equipment to conduct an array of assays pertinent to clinical efficacy. The research lab has specific expertise and capability in measuring oxidative stress and inflammatory markers in human specimens, endothelial and platelet function in in vitro and ex vivo models, assays for gut hormone profiles (CCK, GLP-1, Ghrelin, PYY, etc.), tissue analysis, and simulated digestive tract and rheological testing for food property-gut function relationships.
IFSH Analytical Chemistry Laboratory (Bedford Park). This chemistry laboratory has state-of-the-art equipment such as UV, Fluorescence, GC, GC-MS, HPLC, HPLC-MS/MS, ELISA, electrophoresis and DSC. In addition, through the Illinois Institute of Technology, lab technicians have access to circular diachronic and X-ray crystallography for protein structure determination. This equipment is also used to support nutrition research projects and the chemistry group has extensive capability and expertise in analytical assessment of nutritional compounds, including vitamin C, vitamin A and the carotenoids, vitamin E and the B vitamins.
Other Lab and Facilities Support. Collaboration with IFSH’s Food Microbiology and Processing and Packaging science platforms provides for extensive food safety evaluation and assurance of products aimed for human consumption trials. Collaboration among nutrition, microbiology and food processing focus areas deliver science validating new or optimized product formulations, new preservation methods and alternative food processing strategies aimed at enhancing flavor, texture and nutritive quality. IFSH is well-equipped with microbiology laboratories, environmental chambers, BSL-2 laboratory, and a BSL-3 laboratory and pilot plant that support various Nutrition research activities.
