Mulubirhan Assefa Alemayohu, INVITE PHD candidate in the PhD Programme Applied Sciences of Life and Health, has been named an Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science Finalist, a program of the American Society for Nutrition to recognize the highest quality research presented by students and young investigators at NUTRITION 2020 LIVE ONLINE.

American Society for Nutrition

The American Society for Nutrition (ASN) is the preeminent professional organization for nutrition research scientists and clinicians around the world.

Founded in 1928, the society brings together the top nutrition researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and industry leaders to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition.

ASN publishes four peer-reviewed journals and provides education and professional development opportunities to advance nutrition research, practice and education.

Nutrition is one of the major events organised by ASN. The 2020 edition was scheduled in to begin May 30 in Seattle, but it has been cancelled due to the impacts of COVID-19. Nonetheless, ASN Foundation and its partners have organised a bread-new online event: Nutrition 2020 Live Online, which took place on June 1 – 4, 2020.  

The Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science program

More than 1,000 abstracts were submitted by students and postdoctoral fellows and the Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science program aims to recognize the top 15% highest scoring abstracts as finalists.  Abstracts were rated by more than 500 nutrition scientists.

“Through this activity, the American Society for Nutrition celebrates the achievements of our rising stars,” stated Richard Mattes, PhD, MPH, RD, President, American Society for Nutrition. “The Society looks forward to watching their future contributions to advance our understanding of nutrition science and practice.”

The full list of Emerging Leaders in Nutrition Science Finalists is available here.

A study on flavonoids in food composition

Mulubirhan Assefa Alemayohu has received this recognition for the abstract Flavonoid Content of Selected Foods – A Comparison of Four International Composition Tables, co-authored together with Elisabetta Zanolin, Lucia Cazzoletti, Liliya Chamitava, Veronica Mattioli (all from the University of Verona), Jenny Plumb (Quadram Institute Bioscience in Norwich, UK), Peter GJ Burney (Imperial College London, UK), Vanessa Garcia-Larsen (The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA).

Mulubirhan is doing his doctoral research within a multi-national survey Burden of Lung Disease (BOLD) study, aimed at the understanding of chronic lung disease from a population perspective. The study presented by Mulubirhan investigated the variations in the content of flavonoids of foods included in BOLD’s food frequency questionnaire and their comparability, using four international food composition tables.

Flavonoids are a large class of bioactive compounds produced by plants and widely found in plant-based foods. They are very interesting for their properties: indeed, they are antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antitumor, anti-allergic, antiproliferative, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-mutagenic. Therefore, flavonoids could play an important role in the treatment of chronic lung disease.

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To estimate the intake of nutrients and bioactive compounds, studies about populations use food composition tables which describe nutritionally important components of foods. The content of flavonoids might differ depending on which table is being used. The study carried out by investigated the variations in the content of flavonoids in the population surveyed by BLOD using four international food composition tables.

Here you can find the poster presented by Mulubirhan.

The Barbara and Richard Hall Student Award for Excellence in Nutrition Science

As a consequence, the Center for Human Nutrition of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimora, USA) has decided to award Mulubirhan Assefa Alemayohu with the Barbara and Richard Hall Student Award for Excellence in Nutrition Science. We congratulate Mulubirhan Assefa Alemayohu and his supervisors, Prof M. Elisabetta Zanolin at the University of Verona and Dr. Vanessa Garcia-Larsen at Johns Hopkins University, for this important achievement.