OGIRC

University of Guelph

College of Biological Sciences

Human Health & Nutritional Sciences

David Mutch studies nutrigenomics, i.e. the study of diet-gene interactions and how nutrition can influence a person’s health. Nutrigenomics is poised to have a considerable impact on the prevention and treatment of obesity by recommending lifestyle modifications based on an individual’s genetic information. Dr. Mutch's research program is focused on understanding how dietary lipids can affect adipose tissue function using several modern approaches such as: 1) Genetics - to determine whether polymorphisms in genes involved in lipid metabolism are associated with obesity-related phenotypes, 2) Transcriptomics - to elucidate how different dietary lipids affect gene expression and function, and 3) Metabolomics - to identify novel biomarkers that can be used to assess the efficacy of dietary interventions in order to better personalize health management. Integrating these approaches will provide additional information to help understand why individuals respond differentially to dietary interventions.