By:
Chu

Source(s):
Susan Wedeking susan.wedeking@bms.com, Mead Johnson Nutritionals 812-
Robert Cousins cousins@ufl.edu, 352-392-1991 ext. 222

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GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Robert Cousins, a Boston family professor of nutrition at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has been named winner of the 23rd annual Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research.

He was recognized for his contributions to micronutrient research, including his wide-ranging and continuing focus on the metabolism and function of zinc in the immune system.

The award, a $50,000 cash prize and a silver commemorative medallion, is given annually in each of six therapeutic areas: cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, metabolic disease, neuroscience and nutrition. The recipient is selected by peer review.

Cousins will receive the nutrition award at the annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Distinguished Achievement Award dinner in New York City on Oct. 16, 2003.

During a distinguished career that has spanned more than three decades, Cousins and his colleagues have studied novel zinc-regulated genes that are essential for the regulation of a host of processes in the body.

Beginning in the 1970s, Cousins focused on zinc metabolism as regulated by hormones and immune mediators related to stress and infection, and transcriptional regulation studies that set the stage for a new and groundbreaking understanding of zinc’s role in gene expression and protein function.

He was the first to identify the presence of intestinal metallothionein, a protein involved in the regulation and kinetics of the intestinal absorption of dietary zinc, while also discovering its vital role in cellular zinc metabolism, its relationship to zinc deficiency and the consequences that it can have on the body.

In his studies, Cousins was the first to demonstrate that a dietary trace mineral could actually influence the transcriptional regulation of gene expression. His laboratory continues to study the role of such zinc-binding proteins and the factors controlling their synthesis and degradation. Among the applications of his work has been the development of micro-level gene expression assays that offer new tools for assessing a person’s micronutrient status in field and clinical settings.

His discovery and understanding of the zinc-binding properties of another protein –cysteine-rich intestinal protein or CRIP — has led to a more complete appreciation of how zinc behaves in intestinal and immune cells. CRIP is now understood to have a role in immune defense against infection.

Most recently, Cousins discovered that zinc deficiencies can actually induce the expression of an intestinal hormone called uroguanylin. The research is a breakthrough toward realizing the probable role that zinc deficiencies may play in zinc-responsive diarrheal diseases common in young children, particularly in the developing world. Today, using nutritional genomics, he continues to explore zinc status and transport and zinc’s regulatory role in the immune system.

“Even as he has made these many important contributions to understanding more about micronutrients like zinc, Dr. Cousins has also remained in the forefront in the field of nutritional genomics, applying state-of-the-art tools to a variety of important and relevant questions of nutritional research,” said Robert Burns, research fellow, nutrition science, global research and development at Mead Johnson & Company, a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

“For example, Dr. Cousins has utilized genomic approaches to understand the metabolic consequences of deficiencies or excesses of zinc in the body. And while so many of his fundamental discoveries continue to be of great scientific interest, they also have enormous implications for human health, particularly as we have come to understand the role of zinc deficiency in early childhood morbidity and mortality in the developing world. As technologies have advanced, Dr. Cousins has made creative and innovative use of those technologies for the benefit of science and most importantly, for the benefit of humankind.”

Cousins received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont in 1963 and his doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Connecticut in 1968. He began his academic career as an assistant professor of nutrition at Rutgers University in 1971 and was named to his current post in UF’s food science and human nutrition department in 1982. Since 1987, he also has served as director of UF’s Center for Nutritional Sciences. His faculty position is an Eminent Scholars Chair funded by the UF Foundation Inc.

His honors include: the Mead Johnson Award for research in nutrition in 1979 and the Osborne and Mendel Award in 1989, both from the American Institute of Nutrition; a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; and the USDA Secretary’s Honor Award for Superior Service in Research in 2000. In 2000, Cousins was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The author of more than 160 papers, he has also served as an editor or on the editorial committees and boards of a number of major journals, including the Annual Review of Nutrition, the Journal of Nutrition and the FASEB Journal. His professional service includes serving as president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the major coalition of biomedical research societies.

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Biomedical Research Grants Program, under which the Distinguished Achievement Award is presented, was initiated in 1977. It marked its 25th anniversary in 2002, reaching a milestone of $100 million in no-strings-attached funding in the six biomedical research areas.

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