Department of Nutrition and Food Safety
The Department of Food Nutrition and Safety is a specialized discipline under the School of Public Health with its Subject Direction: Nutrition and Food Hygiene (100403). The discipline was approved by the State Council's Degree Office as a master's degree program since 2000. So far, hundreds of graduate students have been trained. There are 12 faculty members, including 2 professors, 3 associate professors, 1 outstanding young talent; 7 doctoral supervisors, 7 master tutors, and 2 senior laboratory technicians. All teachers (High proportion of young teachers) graduated with a doctoral degree and 80% of them have more than one year of studying experience in well-known overseas universities.
Discipline orientation: The main research areas are obesity epidemiology, nutrition and chronic disease prevention and control, nutrition-epidemiology, molecular nutrition, nutrition and tumor and immunity, food safety risk assessment, intestinal flora and disease, functional phytochemicals, etc. In view of the problem of chronic disease prevention and control in the world, the study of chronic disease risk factors and prevention and control measures based on system science and big data has been first carried out, and the multi-center cooperation, multi-disciplinary cross and multi-level complementation have been put forward. A new method of prevention and control of chronic diseases. Based on cellular and molecular biology, aerobic and anaerobic microbes and phytochemicals detection platforms, focusing on tumor molecular epidemiology, intestinal flora and phytochemicals. In the aspect of disease, nutrition and chronic disease prevention and control mechanism, the systematic scientific research system of cell-animal-population has been formed, and the training base of high-quality nutrition and food safety talents has been constructed in the western region.
Discipline characteristics: We has formed the main research direction and research platform with the prevention of chronic diseases as the core and the food safety as the goal. We established many research platforms including 1) the research base of early chronic disease prevention with the nutrition of 0 to 3 years of age as the breakthrough point; 2)the population monitoring and intervention research base for the main risk factors of chronic diseases with hypertension as the breakthrough point; 3) the systematic method of the molecular mechanism of lung cancer pathogenesis; 4) the platform of public health related microorganism detection (including aerobic and anaerobic microbes); 5) a systematic research platform for the prevention of chronic diseases by phytochemicals (from extraction, purification, bioactivity identification, to its cell biological activity, animal whole test research); and 6) multi-department collaborative research platform for food risk detection and assessment, food safety national standards tracking and evaluation, food microbiological research, etc.
Work completed and achievements
1) Teaching: We undertake many courses for the students majoring Clinical, Oral, Forensic Medicine, Nursing, Maternal and Child and Imaging Specialty, such as "Preventive Medicine", "Introduction to Preventive Medicine", "Clinical Nutrition", "Nutrition and Health"; "Prevention and Control of sudden Public Health events" and "Community Nutrition and Health" for international Master and Ph.D. students; "Clinical Nutrition", "Prevention and Control of sudden Public Health events", "Health regulations and Health Supervision", "Public Health Theory and methods" and "Public Health and Preventive Medicine" for students majoring in preventive medicine.
2) Academic resources: We have carried out extensive international cooperation and exchanges. We have hosted two international conferences on "Food, Environment and Health", the first International Conference on "Prevention of chronic Diseases", and the International Conference on "Belt and Road Nutrition and Health" in 2008. The Shaanxi Provincial Nutrition and Food Safety Engineering Research Center was also established under the discipline. In 2016, the Kangqiao Dietary Research Center of Xi'an Jiaotong University was established. As the chairman unit of the Shaanxi Nutrition Society, we are leading the nutrition research and academic exchanges of Shaanxi province.
3) Projects: By June 2020, the discipline has undertaken more than 90 provincial and ministerial projects, including 12 projects of the National Natural Science Foundation and 15 projects of international cooperation. Through acceptance, 1 item of epidemiological investigation of food safety accident health standard and 1 technical guide of epidemiological investigation of food safety accident have been issued by the Ministry of Health.
4) Book publishing: We published one book as Associate Editor-in-Chief, and other three books as editors in Science Press, including: Food Safety Supervision and Management, Food Toxicology, Special Population Nutrition, Basic Nutrition; published 4 books as the editor-in-chief in People's Health Publishing House, including: "Public Health Practitioners practical skills examination", "Public Health practice skills of Assistant doctors examination" for national Medical qualification examination. We also participated in the development of nutrition standards: Reference intake of Dietary nutrients of Chinese residents 2013 Edition, Modern Food Hygiene; and Special Nutrition.
Work in progress
1) Using advanced analytical techniques and toxicological methods, obesity epidemiology, nutrition and chronic disease prevention and control, molecular nutrition, nutrition and tumor and immunity, food safety risk assessment, intestinal flora and disease were carried out. Scientific research on functional phytochemicals, nutritional survey of population and nutrition and exercise intervention of common chronic diseases were carried out at the same time;
2) Using the existing medical and health resources, developing the technical standards and technical specifications for food safety quality control, continuously supplementing and improving the risk assessment and risk management system of food safety in China, and strengthening the international exchange of food safety risks. To provide the basis for the government to formulate corresponding policies;
3) Using the experimental equipment and laboratory platform of Nutrition and Food Safety Institute in Western Innovation Port to carry out food safety research, food safety evaluation, food safety testing, to serve the technical progress of the industry, to speed up the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and to provide technical support for the national food safety emergency system.
Department Director: Yu Yan
Office Phone: 029-82651511
E-mail: yuyan@mail.xjtu.edu.com
