LSTM Seminar: Professor Georg Lietz of Newcastle University on "The importance of measuring total body status of vitamin A using the retinol isotope dilution (RID) technique for both vitamin A deficiency and hypervitaminosis A"
Dr Georg Lietz is Professor of International Nutrition at the Human Nutrition Research Centre, Newcastle University, UK (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/hnrc/staff/profile/georglietz.html#background)
His expertise in human nutrition focusses on fat soluble vitamins, fatty acids and related micronutrients. His research group is recognised internationally for its work on diet-gene interactions as an important factor in determining high inter-individual variations in vitamin concentrations.
Georg’s group has established the most sensitive and cost-effective method to analyse vitamin A status in humans applying compartmental modelling to stable isotope derived data, as a gold standard for the determination of vitamin A status in individuals. They aim to develop a simple and accurate method to measure vitamin A status in communities that suffer from both vitamin A deficiency and inflammation.
A current Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded project is evaluating novel biomarkers of vitamin A toxicity and verifying the usefulness of the isotope dilution technique in children in community settings with high rates of inflammationt in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala and the US. The overall outcome of this work will be the determination of safe upper levels of vitamin A intake to aid in the monitoring and optimisation of vitamin A intervention regimens.
This seminar will be live-streamed via: http://bit.ly/LSTM-Sem-GL
A recording will be made available on the LSTM website the following day