Nutrigenomics in the Berlin-Brandenburg Region
Nutrigenomics
Nutrigenomics is a highly innovative and fast-growing interdisciplinary field of research linking genome research, plant biotechnology and molecular nutritional research and offering new applications for medicine and nutrition. Nutrigenomics aims at providing an understanding for how nutrition affects the balance between health and disease. Food ingredients interact with the human genome on a molecular and systemic level. To what extent diet influences the balanced status may depend on an individuals’ genetic makeup. Individual variants of genes need to be identified and characterized and the modifying effect of gene expression and structure by food ingredients has yet to be elucidated. This will open up new perspectives for the prevention, reliable early diagnosis and tailor-made therapies for nutrition-related diseases, promoting advanced technologies and services.
Berlin-Brandenburg Region
The Berlin-Brandenburg region is an outstanding location of human and plant genome research. In addition, excellent expertise in the field of molecular and clinical nutritional research is available. Besides the well-known research institutes German Institute for Human Nutrition (Potsdam-Rehbrücke), Max Planck Institutes for Molecular Genetics (Berlin-Dahlem) and Molecular Plant Physiology (Potsdam-Golm) there are a lot of biotech and life-science companies. Since 1999 the regional Nutrigenomics network has been established, supported by the non-profit association “Verein zur Förderung der Nutrigenomforschung” and the regional biotechnology agency BioTOP Berlin-Brandenburg. Network partners include local universities and research institutes, private enterprises, public-sector organizations and various collaborative project groups. In addition to activities in connection with the government-sponsored BioProfile program, several long-term infrastructural initiatives have been launched, such as involvement by the German Institute for Human Nutrition in the EU-funded Network of Excellence on Nutrition and Genomics and the creation of the Center for Functional Genomics.