Science Spotlight with Dr. Rachel Kopec
In March, the National Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics celebrates National Nutrition Month, a time to emphasize the importance of informed food choices. How does your research program support this goal?
There is great interest in providing “individually tailored” food recommendations that consider a person’s current health status, genetic and other factors (e.g., microbes living in someone’s digestive tract, exercise patterns, taste and flavor preferences, etc.). Unfortunately, we have a poor idea of how to incorporate this information into individualized dietary recommendations. Previous work largely investigated individual nutrients themselves, not as part of foods or food combinations. My group studies essential nutrient and dietary bioactive interactions during digestion and utilization (particularly in the gastrointestinal tract and the brain). We also consider the impacts of these interactions in diseased groups (not just healthy people). A better understanding of these interactions is needed to ultimately provide appropriate “individually tailored” food recommendations for an individual’s health and life situation.
What research tools and methods do you use to help advance nutrition science?
We use state-of-the-art analytical chemistry tools to study synergistic, competitive, and parallel dietary bioactive interactions. We apply these tools to laboratory models, for example, mimicking digestion and apply the resulting digesta to intestinal cells to study absorption. We also apply these tools to extracts of biological samples we or our collaborators have collected from animal and human trials.
It might be surprising to some, but we still have a really limited idea of how a majority of compounds in foods are handled by the body, like whether they are absorbed, and how they might be utilized or broken down afterward. Thus, to make more meaning from our data, we collaborate to identify novel metabolites we’ve found in our data after a certain food or product is consumed. We also try to integrate this metabolite information with other layers of biology (e.g., what’s present in the genome or the microbiome). This integration can help us make more meaning about the underlying biology activated following food consumption, to produce better health (or increased disease, depending on the model being tested).
What excites you most about this research, and how do you see it shaping the future of nutrition science?
Historically, the field of nutrition used a reductionist approach to identify essential vitamins and minerals found in foods – those that keep us alive. Certainly, knowing what keeps us alive was an important first-step! However, with the sophisticated technology we have available today, we can study all metabolites following food consumption - not just a handful of metabolites we assume are important. This approach allows us to “fine-tune” the recommended intakes of different foods for optimal health. We can also begin to elucidate how other, non-essential food components are absorbed and metabolized in the body. Some of these non-essential compounds have bioactivity that reduce chronic disease development, but we’re still figuring out why.
How does interdisciplinary collaboration enhance your research, and what fields of expertise have helped advance your work?
Most of my work is interdisciplinary, and strong collaborations have been crucial in my team’s ability to advance knowledge. We work with plant breeders, clinicians, epidemiologists, food scientists, food engineers, geneticists, microbiologists, NMR chemists, biochemists, bioinformaticians. We also have robust partnerships with academic, government, and industry scientists working towards the same goal of improving population health.
As the faculty lead for precision nutrition research with the Foods for Health leadership team, how does a campus-wide research initiative like FFH support and accelerate progress in this field?
The FFH Initiative fast-tracks many time-consuming and difficult steps for a single faculty running their own research program. It provides a hub of connection for like-minded faculty working on overlapping, precision nutrition-focused topics. These interactions help to quickly identify collaborators, and to brainstorm more bold and transformative projects to advance the science. FFH provides regular updates on new cutting-edge research in the field (no need to read every major journal or news release). The annual meeting allows various groups across campus to share seminal findings, and it provides wonderful opportunities for trainees to share and be acknowledged for their contributions. FFH also introduces faculty to public and private funding opportunities and the funders themselves, to advance precision nutrition-related work.
Finally, the “precision nutrition” pillar is a critical segment of the FFH continuum. Our pillar has the capacity to support and validate the foods developed and transformed by teams in the “food and crop improvement” and “food perception and behavior” pillars of FFH.