External Partners Directed Research – Personalized Nutrition Initiative

Funded Research Projects

2024-2025 Awardees

Personalized Nutrition Predictors of Cardiovascular and Cognitive Health
Pablo D Robles Granda, PhD, (PI), Teaching Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Data Science, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Lav Varshney, PhD, (Co-PI), Associate Professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Elizabeth J Johnson, PhD (Co-PI), Adjunct Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition & Science Policy, Tufts University
Aron Barbey, PhD (Co-PI), Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The Interaction of Genetic and Dietary Risk Factors for MASLD in Subjects with Obesity
Sergei Maslov, PhD (PI), Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Sharon Donovan, PhD, RD (Co-PI), Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and Director of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ananthan Nambiar, BA (Co-I), Graduate Research Fellow, Department of Bioengineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

2022-2023 Awardees

Dried Blood Spot Validation for Assessment of Xanthophylls
Naiman A. Khan, PhD, RD (PI), Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
John Erdman, PhD (Co-I), Professor Emeritus, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Brenda Fonseca, MS, PhD Candidate (Co-I), Global Technical Services Lead, Kemin Industries, Human Nutrition and Health
Soyoung Choi, PhD, RN (Co-I), Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Predicting Eating Events Using Machine Learning Models Trained on Passive Smartphone Sensor Data
William Sullivan, PhD (Co-PI), Director, Smart Healthy Communities Initiative, Professor, Landscape Architecture, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Melvin Fenner, CPHIMS, MBA, PhD (Co-PI), Senior Assistant Director of Medical & Mental Health Systems & Compliance, Student Affairs Technology, Director, Health Technology, Smart Healthy Communities Initiative, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Naiman A. Khan, PhD, RD (Advisor), Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
David Thomas, MS (RA), PhD Student, Informatics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Outcomes Research Fellow, Carle Foundation Hospital

Predicting Personalized Responses to Diet: The Role of Host-Microbe Interactions
Hannah Holscher, PhD, RD (PI), Associate Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Sayeepriyadarshini Anakk, PhD (Co-I), Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Nicholas Burd, PhD (Co-I), Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Naiman A. Khan, PhD, RD (Co-I), Associate Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jason Ridlon, PhD (Co-I), Associate Professor, Department of Animal Sciences, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ruoqing Zhu, PhD (Co-I), Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, Personalized Nutrition Initiative Affiliate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Call for Proposals

PDF of Submission Details
Preproposal Deadline (required): December 12, 2024 | 11:59 p.m. CST
Full Proposal Deadline (by invitation only): January 27, 2025 | 11:59 p.m. CST
Funding available: up to $50,000.00 per proposal

The Personalized Nutrition Initiative, with the support of our External Partners Program, is seeking applications for multidisciplinary research proposals that have the potential to impact personalized nutrition and support health and well-being of healthy human populations across the lifespan. The goal of the External Partners Directed Research program is to fund research with the potential to provide new applied and translatable innovation in personalized nutrition to advance health or solutions to personalized nutrition-related barriers that meet shared and critical needs in companies of all sizes.

In this call for proposals, we invite proposals from interdisciplinary teams for projects using existing data sets to enhance personalized nutrition-related understandings. The secondary analysis may involve existing data sets on campus or All of Us, UK Biobank, NHANES, other large data sets, or a combination of data sets. Examples of areas of interest are cardiometabolic outcomes (e.g., weight, heart health, blood glucose), cognition, and optimizing health biomarkers, but other areas will be considered.

Projects that will yield initial results in a relatively short timeframe (12 months) will be prioritized, with opportunities to share findings and garner input from the External Partners. A maximum of $50,000.00 may be initially requested over 12 months. To be eligible, the Principal Investigator (PI) must be an Affiliate member of the Personalized Nutrition Initiative. External collaborators can be part of the proposal, but funding is required to stay on campus (i.e., no sub-awards). If there are collaborations with researchers outside of academia or the Personalized Nutrition Initiative External Partners, please arrange a discussion before preproposal submission and include information in the submission; see instructions below.