A Southampton professor has been named as the tenth recipient of the Danone International Prize for Nutrition.
Phillip Calder, Professor of Nutritional Immunology in Medicine, was awarded the prize for his cutting-edge research into fatty acid metabolism and functionality.
One of Phillip’s recent studies found that children born to mothers who eat salmon when pregnant may be less likely to have doctor-diagnosed asthma, compared to children whose mothers did not eat salmon. This is just one example of Phillip’s groundbreaking research into specific relationships between nutrition and immune-related conditions over the course of human life.
Upon receiving the award at the Experimental Biology Congress in San Diego, USA, Phillip said: “It is a great honour to receive the Danone International Prize for Nutrition. To me, it represents recognition by the nutrition community of 25 years of research in nutrition, immunology and omega-3 fatty acid functionality.”
“Our new findings from the Salmon in Pregnancy study indicate that early nutrition interventions, even during pregnancy, can have long lasting effects on health,” he added.
The prize carries a donation of €120,000 and is one of the most distinguished honours in the field of nutritional science. It is awarded every two years to promote the work of internationally outstanding researchers.
Professor Olivier Goulet, President of the Danone Institute International, said of Phillip’s award: “It is in honour of his pioneering work over the last 25 years, his groundbreaking results and their far-reaching clinical applicability that Professor Calder has been awarded, on the Jury’s unanimous decision, the 10th Danone International Prize for Nutrition 2016.”
This is not the first time that a Southampton professor has received the Danone award. In 2005 Professor David Barker was the recipient for his Barker Early Origins Hypothesis – the concept that fetal growth restriction due to nutritional deprivation is a key cause of common medical disorders in adult life.
