{"id":31740,"date":"2026-07-01T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31740"},"modified":"2026-07-01T10:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:14:16","slug":"nih-highlighted-topic-new-approach-methodologies-nams-for-dietary-supplement-and-nutrition-research","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/news-stories\/nih-highlighted-topic-new-approach-methodologies-nams-for-dietary-supplement-and-nutrition-research\/","title":{"rendered":"NIH Highlighted Topic: New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) for Dietary Supplement and Nutrition research"},"template":"","news_categories":[17,18],"news_tags":[],"class_list":["post-31740","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","news_categories-grants","news_categories-research"],"acf":{"intro_text_subtitle":"","hide_subtitle":false,"intro_text_body":"<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Research on diet-related health outcomes and food safety often relies on animal studies and population-level endpoints and\/or is focused on individual dietary components. However, translational limitations of these approaches can include limited relevance to human biology, metabolism, and dietary exposure patterns; poor sensitivity for detecting subtle, chronic, or life-stage-specific effects; and inability to assess complex foods, novel ingredients, or processing or matrix effects. As such, the development and validation of methods that are more human-relevant and appropriate for investigating dietary intake and modern food system health effects are urgently needed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Purpose<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This topic encourages innovative research on human-relevant new approach methodologies (NAMs) (e.g., organoids, tissue chips, microphysiological systems, multi-omics technologies, computational models) to evaluate the safety and efficacy of foods, food components, and dietary supplements for health optimization and chronic disease risk reduction across the lifespan.<\/p>\n<p>Objectives include developing and validating human-based NAMs to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Investigate absorption\/distribution\/metabolic processes involved in dietary intake of nutrients or non-nutrient bioactive compounds across multiple physiological systems<\/li>\n<li>Simulate\/predict health outcome relevant interactions between cellular, organ, and body systems in response to complex food or dietary supplement matrices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>High priority research areas include (but are not limited to) studies that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Identify and validate nutrient or non-nutrient bioactive compound (e.g., botanical phytochemicals, additives) exposure\/status biomarkers that are relevant to human health and chronic disease<\/li>\n<li>Generate replicable, interoperable datasets on nutrient or bioactive compound absorption and\/or metabolism in the context of different (genetics, sex, age, underlying health condition) populations<\/li>\n<li>Quantify bioaccessibility (amount of substance released from a food\/supplement matrix) or bioavailability (amount of substance absorbed and available to organs\/microbiota) of nutrients or bioactive compounds, especially in the context of multi-ingredient dietary supplements or processed foods<\/li>\n<li>Assess interactions between food- and dietary supplement-induced cellular\/tissue\/organ functional modifications (e.g., gene expression, metabolomics, proteomics, nutrient absorption, immune signaling) to improve predictions for whole-person health outcomes<\/li>\n<li>Investigate mechanisms of action or biological signatures across complex physiological systems in response to multi-ingredient food interventions and dietary supplement exposure<\/li>\n<li>Characterize dietary bioactive substances\u2019 impact on key developmental processes (e.g., neurodevelopment, immune system maturation) to assess potential risks associated with fetal and early childhood exposure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See more information <a href=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/funding\/find-a-fit-for-your-research\/highlighted-topics\/62\">here,<\/a> including participating NIH Institutes\/Centers and their specific interests relating to the Highlighted Topic.<\/p>\n<p>Apply to a\u00a0highlighted topic\u00a0through an appropriate <a class=\"x_x_x_OWAAutoLink\" title=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/funding\/nih-guide-for-grants-and-contracts\/parent-announcements\" href=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/funding\/nih-guide-for-grants-and-contracts\/parent-announcements\">NIH Parent Funding Announcement<\/a>\u00a0or another broad NIH opportunity available on <a class=\"x_x_x_new-domain x_x_x_OWAAutoLink\" title=\"https:\/\/grants.gov\/\" href=\"https:\/\/grants.gov\/\">Grants.gov<\/a>. Learn how to interpret and use <a class=\"x_x_x_OWAAutoLink\" title=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/funding\/find-a-fit-for-your-research\/highlighted-topics\" href=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/funding\/find-a-fit-for-your-research\/highlighted-topics\">Highlighted Topics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Please contact <a href=\"mailto:kcielo@uic.edu\">Dr. Karen Cielo<\/a>,\u00a0Director of Research Development, if you are interested in applying or would like to discuss the opportunity.<\/p>\n","intro_text_excerpt":"","content_author":"Karen Cielo","content_sticky":false,"intro_text_include_image":false,"news_include_thumbnail":false,"components":false,"SEO_meta_description":"","intro_text_image":false,"intro_text_image_alt_text":"","intro_text_image_caption":"","intro_text_image_attribution":""},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31741,"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31740\/revisions\/31741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_categories?post=31740"},{"taxonomy":"news_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ahs.uic.edu\/inside-ahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_tags?post=31740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}