Investigators honored for creativity in obesity research

Nine submissions were selected by the UAB Nutrition & Obesity Research Center as the most creative ideas for grant proposals in obesity-related research. To collect the cash prizes, the winners must submit their proposal to an extramural sponsoring authority by Nov. 5, 2013.

This unique Creativity is a Decision competition, now in its third year, is open to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff. Twenty-five applicants submitted one-page proposals this year.

These faculty were selected to receive $5,000 for their proposed projects:

• Diptiman Chanda, Ph.D., Curing Childhood Obesity by in utero Stem Cell Transplantation;
• Gareth Dutton, Ph.D., Alternating Caloric Goals during Treatment to Improve Long-Term Outcomes;
• Monika Safford, M.D., Sound Bites to Healthier Eating;
• Victor Darley-Usmar, Ph.D., Assessing Obesity and Therapeutic Efficacy by Defining a Bioenergetic Health Index; and
• Thomas van Groen, Ph.D., The influence of the gut microbiome on development and cognition.

These post-doctoral fellows were selected to receive $2,500 for their proposed projects:

• Tonia Schwartz, Ph.D., Are populations evolutionarily adapted to fluctuations in their environment? Experiments using natural populations and fluorescently tagged lineages of Daphnia; and
• Michael Sandel, Ph.D.; Genomic Determinants of Body Composition and Cellular Metabolism in Baikal Skulpins.

The selected pre-doctoral students were selected to receive $1,000 for their proposed projects:

• William Neumeier, M.S., Caloric Intake with Heuristics, Exercise and Weight Stratification (CHEWS); and
• Sarah Katherine Sweatt, M.S., Does a eucaloric high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet improve metabolic outcomes and increase free-living physical activity?