Dr. Sharon Donovan, Professor and Melissa M. Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health, Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Agricultural, Consumer & Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been awarded a Hagler Fellowship at Texas A&M University. Dr. Donovan’s laboratory conducts research in pediatric nutrition, focusing on optimizing neonatal intestinal and gut microbial development with respect tocognition and the reduction of childhood obesity.
The Chapkin lab along with Dr. Donovan and collaborators (Dr. Ivan Ivanov, Dr. Irina Gaynanova, and Dr. Grace Yoon) will systematically integrate genomic data from both the infant (host mucosa) and gut microbiota in order to define host-microbe gene-diet interactions within the context of the structure and functionality of gut microbial communities