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Mihai Mehedint, M.D.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Nutrition Research Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mihai Mehedint as a research associate at the Nutrition Research Institute in Kannapolis.

Mehedint will study nutrition and epigenetics. (Epigenetics is the study of how genes bring about changes in an organism.) Specifically, Mehedint is investigating how the nutrient choline affects angiogenesis, the means by which the human brain develops the blood supply that it needs to grow properly.

Because choline has been found to be important in fetal brain growth, Mehedint's research may help to explain how exactly choline helps a baby's brain develop.

Zhong Guo, Ph.D.

Dr. Zhong Guo is a post-doctoral fellow the Nutrition Research Institute on the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. He has been a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying the nutrients choline and folate. In addition to his experience as an analytical chemist, Guo is an expert at employing cutting-edge technology, including mass spectrometry, chromatography and surface-assisted laser desorption ionization.

At the NRI, Guo will use mass spectroscopy to study metabolomics, the new science that allows researchers to detect and measure all the small molecules at work in the human body's chemistry.

Sangita Sharma, Ph.D., joins the NRI

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health's Nutrition Research Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sangita Sharma to the Institute. In addition to her role at the Nutrition Research Institute, Sharma will hold an appointment as associate professor in UNC's Department of Nutrition. Dr. Sharma is a gifted researcher and scholar. She is an expert in the relationship between nutrition, ethnicity, and disease, focusing on why different ethnic groups have different risk factors and rates of chronic disease. Her research requires careful nutrition assessment, and she has developed special methods to evaluate the nutritional intake of previously unstudied populations.

Mihai Niculescu, M.D., Ph.D. opens lab at the NRI

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Nutrition Research Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mihai Niculescu to the Institute’s brain team. In addition to his appointment with the Nutrition Research Institute, Niculescu will hold an appointment as assistant professor in UNC’s Department of Nutrition. At the Nutrition Research Institute, Dr. Niculescu will be studying Epigenetics and Nutrition. This kind of research is helping to explain how diet sets the “switches” that control gene expression. Specifically, Niculescu will be investigating the role that a mother’s diet plays in how her fetus’s brain develops.

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