Multidisciplinary Team Wins $1.7 Million NIH Training Grant for AI-Precision Nutrition in Underserved Communities

PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (November 3, 2023) — In a significant step towards addressing nutritional health disparities, a groundbreaking project has been awarded a grant of $1.7 million by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This initiative aims to increase and diversify the future workforce in Artificial Intelligence for Precision Nutrition Science Research (AIPrN). Advancing research in AIPrN will lead to the development of innovative solutions to promote nutrition and health equity among underserved populations, particularly in the context of food insecurity, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. 

This multidisciplinary research training program is co-led by Seungchan Kim, Ph.D., chief scientist and executive professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the director of the Chancellor’s Research Initiative Center for Computational Systems Biology, Roy G. Perry College of Engineering (RGPCoE); Janet Antwi, B.Pharm, MS, Ph.D., RD, LD, ACUE, assistant professor in nutrition and dietetics, in College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (CAFNR) at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU); and, Salma Musaad, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics and biostatistics in the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). The program will also be advised by a robust internal and external advisory committee, including professors from BCM and Texas A&M University (TAMU) and Deans of RGPCoE and CAFNR.

“This grant wouldn’t have been possible without support from many other faculty mentors from both PVAMU and BCM to support training our predoctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. I am looking forward to collaborating with all of them to make this training program successful,” said Kim. 

“The research training in the AIPrN program is the first of its kind at PVAMU, and will constitute faculty in nutrition, electrical engineering, medicine, health, and biomedical sciences,” said Antwi. “The multidisciplinary nature of the program will also expose predoctoral students and postdoctoral fellows to a range of research projects in food insecurity, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, which are urgently needed to benefit the national public health efforts to address health disparities.” 

The project’s rationale highlights the pressing need for personalized nutrition interventions, emphasizing the profound variability in individual responses to dietary changes and physical activity. Precision nutrition, which tailors recommendations based on an individual’s unique biological characteristics, offers a promising solution to combat these health disparities.

The grant will fund a comprehensive predoctoral and postdoctoral research training program in AIPrN at PVAMU, focusing on research to study underserved minority populations living in rural and food desert areas. The initiative will train predoctoral students in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a specialization in AI/ML to analyze and interpret precision nutrition data, as well as postdoctoral fellows in nutritional science in CAFNR to employ AI/ML techniques in designing individualized dietary recommendations. The partnership with the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at BCM ensures access to state-of-the-art nutritional research. The integration of AI/ML training into nutrition health disparities research will bolster existing training programs, particularly in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Nutrition at PVAMU.

“This innovative project employs technology enhanced AIPrN approaches to target nutrition health disparities among ethnic and racial minority populations, rural communities, and food desert areas,” said PVAMU Vice President of Research & Innovation Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA. “PVAMU’s unique position as a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in a rural and food desert community, along with its Center for Computational Systems Biology, equips it with the necessary tools and expertise to drive this initiative forward.”

“Food and nutrition security are among the many signature programs of ​this growing College, the only land grant university near the greater Houston area. Through grants such as this, we are able to leverage our vast extension and outreach networks and other related signature programs (such as Wellness in Houston) to better address health disparities in our wide service area and magnify the impact on our underserved communities. The ability to integrate state-of-the-art AI, smart agriculture and precision nutrition technologies empowers our researchers (working in close tandem with extension and outreach providers) to deliver holistic solutions that are preventative but also tailored to be affordable and accessible to our target audience,” said Dean Gerard D’Souza, CAFNR, PVAMU.

“The AIPrN program is a rare opportunity to collaborate with PVAMU to train the next generation of underrepresented predoctoral students and postdoctoral fellows to integrate AI/ML skills into nutritional science projects,” said Musaad. “We are thrilled to help provide training opportunities in precision nutrition to solve real-world research challenges and promote nutrition health equity. Being an HBCU, we see our collaboration as an exciting opportunity to contribute to increasing the diversity of the workforce in AIPrN.”

The expected outcomes of this project are significant. The trained researchers will be poised to make substantial contributions to the field, ultimately leading to innovative solutions for combating diet-related chronic diseases and nutrition disparities. This aligns with the mission of the participating NIH Institutes and Offices, emphasizing the importance of addressing health disparities among underserved populations. 

“I along with my colleagues Dr. Regan Bailey and Dr. Rebecca Seguin-Fowler offer our congratulations to Prairie View A&M University for establishing this critically important and timely training program at the intersection of nutrition and data science technologies. The Texas A&M Institute for Advancing Health Through Agriculture (IHA) is proud to support and collaborate in the training of the next generation of experts who will advance the health of our nation through nutrition, with a focus on underserved populations,” said Patrick Stover, Ph.D., director, IHA, TAMU. “The future of AI is now. AI is transforming everything, including nutrition. Today underrepresented minorities face unprecedented challenges in health as a result of poor nutrition. Developing a workforce of underrepresented minorities with expertise in AI will enhance the performance of AI systems that impact underserved communities and help address the diversity crisis that AI is facing,” said Dean Pamela Obiomon, RGPCoE, PVAMU. 

“The Children’s Nutrition Research Center is delighted to be a partner with Prairie View A&M in this terribly important endeavor. Research by, and education of, new scientists is an essential part of the Center’s mission. Additionally, the Center is committed to using its research findings to add to the fundamental evidence basis for nutrition policies and guidelines that might result from this work. This is a great opportunity for two fine institutions of higher education to make a permanent mark on nutritional health,” said BCM CNRC Director and Advisory Board member, Dr. Dennis Bier, MD, Professor in Pediatrics-Nutrition.  

  

By Jenna Craig