Illinois Tech Joins Nationwide Study to Develop Artificial Intelligence Algorithms to Improve Personalized Nutrition Plans
CHICAGO—Illinois Institute for Technology is receiving a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a nationwide study that will harness artificial intelligence technology to improve personalized nutrition plans.
A total of $170 million will be awarded to 14 clinics and research centers across the country as part of the Nutrition for Precision Health powered by the All of Us research program (NPH), which will gather data and develop algorithms that predict individual responses to food and dietary patterns. Illinois Tech, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago will receive roughly $13.3 million, pending availability of funds, among them as partners in the Illinois Precision Health Consortium. The consortium will conduct dietary assessments with 2,000 participants in the Chicago area.
One of the challenges of personalized nutrition, also known as precision nutrition, is the cookie-cutter approach to dietary recommendations. Britt Burton-Freeman, director of Illinois Tech’s Center for Nutrition Research, says differences in genetics, age, race, sex, and a variety of other factors mean that each person’s body responds to diets differently. The health information and dietary assessments that will be collected from a diverse group of 10,000 participants nationwide for NPH will provide a comprehensive database that will be used toward a goal of developing AI-generated algorithms.
These AI algorithms will use the data points to predict how various groups respond to food. Burton-Freeman says this type of AI technology could make it easy for health care providers to someday put a patient’s medical history and health information into a computer system that can generate more personalized, effective diet plans tailored to that individual’s genetic makeup. Burton-Freeman says that she anticipates the NPH study’s findings will spur more avenues for future research.
“It’s an honor to be selected for this study. As a researcher and director of Illinois Tech’s Center for Nutrition Research, to have our team involved in this scale of program is an amazing opportunity and experience,” Burton-Freeman says. “The work from the NPH initiative will produce landmark findings that will set the stage for the future of precision health.”
New data gathered from the NPH will be combined with NIH’s All of Us Research Program, which is building “the most diverse biomedical data resource of its kind, to help researchers gain better insights into the biological, environmental, and behavioral factors that influence health.”
All of Us and Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program are service marks of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The Illinois Institute of Technology is a performance site on the Northwestern University award, grant number: UG1 HD107697-01.
For more information on NPH and the All of Us Research Program, click here for NIH’s news release.
