The University of British Columbia, Canada
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada at the West Coast of Canada, on the traditional territory of the Musqueam people. UBC is the second-ranked university in Canada, consistently ranked among the top 20 public universities in the world and the second-ranked in health research. The Canadian team is led by Assoc. Prof. Yvonne Lamers, Head of the UBC Nutritional Biomarker Laboratory, and Canada Research Chair in Human Nutrition and Vitamin Metabolism, at the Food, Nutrition and Health (FNH) Program, Faculty of Land and Food Systems. Prof. Lamers’ research has focused on B-vitamin metabolism with the overarching goal to identify biological mechanisms linking nutrition, health and disease, and to evaluate optimal vitamin status to maintain biochemical functions across the lifespan (www.vitamins.landfood.ubc.ca). Prof. Lamers is also Investigator at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute (www.bcchr.ca) and lead member of the UBC Platform of Excellence in Metabolomics. Prof. Michael Kobor, co-investigator, is appointed at the Department of Medical Genetics, UBC Faculty of Medicine, and runs his research program at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute and Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics.
University of Alberta, Canada
The University of Alberta is one of the two research sites of the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) Study, a pregnancy cohort of ~2200 families focusing on predictors of and intersections between parental mental health and child behavioural development.
The University of Alberta is located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people. The university is recognized as one the top 5 universities in Canada and top 150 universities in the world.
The Edmonton team of the APrON study and APrON study biobank led by Prof. Catherine Field is based at the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Research Innovation.
University of Calgary, Canada
The University of Calgary is one of the two research sites of the Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition (APrON) Study, a pregnancy cohort of ~2200 families focusing on predictors of and intersections between parental mental health and child behavioural development.
The University of Calgary is located in the foothills of Canada’s Rocky Mountains in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on the traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta and home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3. As one of Canada’s top comprehensive research universities, the University of Calgary is ranked in the top 10 universities in Canada and in the top 200 universities in world.
The APrON team is led by Prof. Nicole Letourneau, a Registered Nurse and Professor in the Faculty of Nursing and Cumming School of Medicine (in the Departments of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Community Health Sciences) at the University of Calgary.
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain
The Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), located in southern Catalonia, was created in 1991 by the Parliament of Catalonia. As a leading university in Catalonia as well as the European area, the URV is internationally recognized for its excellence in research in areas such as medicine, nutrition and health.
The Spanish team is led by Prof. Michelle Murphy, Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at URV. Dr. Murphy is the Principal Investigator of the Reus-Tarragona Birth Cohort Study, a collaboration between the URV Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health and the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the University Hospitals: Sant Joan, Reus and Joan XXIII, Tarragona. Her research team specializes in perinatal epidemiology and child development and psychology.
Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK
The UK team, led by Prof. Helene McNulty, is located at the Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE) at Ulster University, Coleraine Northern Ireland. NICHE, a centre of excellence for nutrition research, was set up in 1996 with EU structural funds to provide greater understanding of diet-related health issues. NICHE is the largest research entity within the School of Biomedical Sciences at Ulster, which achieved 5* (highest possible) ratings for its research in the UK-wide Research Assessment Exercise in 1996 and 2001, and was top-rated on research power in the 2008 assessment. In the most recent exercise (REF 2014), the Ulster submission remained at the forefront of research in this area in the UK, with 100% of research environment, 95% of research impact and 81% of research papers judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent. NICHE encompasses 10 component research groups, of which the Folate Group, led by NICHE Director and EpiBrain co-investigator, Professor Helene McNulty, has particular expertise and an international reputation in the area of folate and metabolically-related B-vitamins and their role in promoting health and preventing disease across all stages of the lifecycle.