BGU's Prof. Iris Shai has been appointed an Adjunct Professor of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, one of the premier nutrition departments in the world. The appointment runs until June 2024.
At Harvard, Dr. Shai will develop a course on Dietary Intervention Trials – Clinical Insights and Nutritional Omics. The students will deepen their knowledge of various aspects of dietary intervention trials and will learn novel omics analytic methods.
"Prof. Iris Shai is a leading researcher in the field and it is only natural that her excellence should also be recognized by Harvard University. We are delighted with this appointment and hope that it will lead to many fruitful research collaborations," said BGU Rector Prof. Chaim Hames.
As a member of BGU's S. Daniel Abraham International Center for Health and Nutrition and the Department of Public Health, Prof. Iris Shai has conducted several high profile dietary clinical trials, using cutting edge technologies, over the past decade: the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial (DIRECT), the Cardiovascular Diabetes and Ethanol (CASCADE) Randomized Control Trial, the CENTRAL Whole-Body MRI Randomized Control Trial, and the DIRECT PLUS fat-brain-gut axis Randomized Control Trial. .
The results of these studies have been published in top professional journals (including the highly regarded New England Journal of Medicine), as well as mainstream media (The New York Times, CNN, etc.). Study outcomes have already had an impact on the assessment, treatment, and prevention of cardio-metabolic disease worldwide.
Prof. Shai received a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard University for her post-doctoral research before joining BGU's faculty.
