Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: (210) 567-2579
E-mail: sansom@uthscsa.edu

Leonel Vela, M.D., M.P.H., regional dean of the RAHC, wrote the proposal to establish the U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center and was the original principal investigator.
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The U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center will hold its inaugural conference, “Nuestra Nutrición, Nuestra Tradición,” from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen. The regional conference is geared to health professionals.

The morning keynote address will be available in San Antonio by video feed as part of the regularly scheduled Pediatric Grand Rounds. The broadcast will originate from the Harlingen RAHC auditorium, room 1.100, and be shown in:
• room 409L, Medical School building, at the Health Science Center;
• the auditorium at the David Christopher Goldsbury Center for Children and Families, adjacent to CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital; and
• the Children’s Center of Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen.

The entire conference program also will be sent by video feed to the Health Science Center’s Laredo Campus Extension. Laredo physicians, nurses and dieticians may contact Adriana Guerra, (956) 523-7410, for more information.

U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center investigators are conducting 10 pilot projects, including six at the Health Science Center, two at U.T. Pan American, one at Valley Baptist Medical Center and one at U.T. Brownsville. Projects explore hypotheses about nutrition, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, schizophrenia, hardening of the arteries, pesticides and pregnancy, and hyperthyroidism. Four center investigators will present updates on their research projects.

The morning keynote speaker is Barbara Corkey, Ph.D., professor of medicine and biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine and director of the Boston Medical Center Obesity Research Center. She also is editor of the American Journal of Obesity. At 7:30 a.m., Dr. Corkey will discuss “Gaps in Understanding the Pathophysiology of Obesity and Diabetes.”

The concluding keynote speaker is Virginia Stallings, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Nutrition Center. She will speak at 12:30 p.m. on “A Weighty Future: Update on Obesity.”

Attendance at all the conference presentations will entitle physicians, nurses and dietitians to four units of continuing education credit sponsored through Valley Baptist Health System. Dr. Corkey’s lecture will entitle attendees to one unit of credit.

Leonel Vela, M.D., M.P.H., regional dean of the RAHC, wrote the proposal to establish the U.S. Hispanic Nutrition Research and Education Center and was the original principal investigator. Dr. Vela later invited Daniel Hale, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the Health Science Center and a respected expert on diabetes in children, to take leadership as the nutrition center’s principal investigator.

The center, established in 2003, is supported by $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health. Sen. John Cornyn obtained $100,000 for the center three years ago and later $1 million. The 10 current projects are funded at $50,000 each, and a $100,000 project will be launched this year.

The center’s mission is to develop investigator expertise in all aspects of Hispanic nutrition, Dr. Hale said. The resulting body of research from these scientists will be an effective instrument in educating health care professionals and patients about the need to change nutritional behaviors to promote health.

The conference is free, but advance registration is encouraged. To register, see Forms at rahc.uthscsa.edu/HispanicNutrition/index.html. For more information, contact Ivette Torres at (956) 365-8609 or torresi3@uthscsa.edu.