Nutrigenomics – Developing Personalized Diets for Disease Prevention – Is the Focus of a Special Issue of OMICS

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., Dec. 29 /PRNewswire/ — The emerging field of nutrigenomics, which aims to identify the genetic factors that influence the body’s response to diet and studies how the bioactive constituents of food affect gene expression, is explored in a series of provocative, interdisciplinary reports and analyses in the December 2008 Special Issue (Volume 12, number 4) of OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The issue is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/omi

This compendium of papers describing the innovative new area of study encompassed by nutrigenomics research is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 will be published in Spring 2009.

Nutrigenomics’ bidirectional approach to investigating how the genetic traits of an individual or population interact with their diet offers many possibilities for targeted clinical interventions and preventive medicine. These may include modifying either diet or the biochemical response to food exposure to prevent disease in individuals shown to be susceptible to the consequences of unfavorable dietary/genomic interactions. In the future, nutrigenomics may potentially help guide the development of customized diets based on an individual’s genetic make-up.

“In contrast to previous applications of genomics technologies where the goal is to distinguish existing disease from absence of disease, nutrigenomics aims to discern nuanced differences in predisease states such that personalized dietary interventions can be designed to prevent or modify future disease susceptibility,” write Guest Editors Beatrice Godard, PhD, and Vural Ozdemir, MD, PhD, from the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

“Nutrigenomics opens new and amazing frontiers in 21st century biomedical and clinical research,” says Eugene Kolker, PhD, Executive Editor of OMICS and Chief Data Officer at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Seattle, Washington.

OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published quarterly that covers genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics advances in an integrated manner. The Journal explores innovations in the era of post-genomic biology and medicine and focuses on the integration of OMICS, data analyses and modeling, and applications of high-throughput approaches to study complex biological problems. A complete table of contents and free sample issue may be viewed online at www.liebertpub.com/omi

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com), is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Computational Biology, Assay and Drug Development Technologies, and Zebrafish. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at www.liebertpub.com

    Contact: Vicki Cohn, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., (914) 740-2100, ext. 2156, vcohn@liebertpub.com

SOURCE Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.