Reflex of the Postgraduate course and NuGOweek 2019

Reflex of the Postgraduate course "Nutrimetabolomics: how to use the toolkit!" and NuGOweek 2019 "From Foodomics to Nutrigenomics: Translating food composition data into healthy Diets".

Most of us don’t organize our daily lives to optimize our long-term health … yet we do prepare or make decisions about the food we eat every day!

NuGOweek 2019 emphasized the importance of linking food science to human biology within nutrition research to deliver knowledge that can maintain or even improve health and well-being. The 16th edition of NuGOweek was organized in Bern between 9th and 12th September 2019 in consecutive sessions addressing the composition, consumption and metabolism of food and diets as well their functional impact on the health of populations and individuals. These topics were introduced by 7 keynote lectures, each highlighting the important contribution of modern analytical life science technologies to the field of nutrition research. A comprehensive set of 23 oral and 56 poster presentations built the core of NuGOweek 2019 sessions. Among the 155 registered participants, we were particularly pleased that young researchers contributed to a significant proportion of these presentations. The impact of young researchers within the NuGO organization was further underlined in the activities of the early career network (ECN) during NuGOweek.

NuGOweek 2019 was launched with a timely topic, the impact of climate change on nutrition and health. The participants joined on Monday evening for the introductory lecture and a welcome drink with the NuGO colleagues.

During the weekend preceding NuGOweek 2019 on 7th – 9th September, 22 young researchers registered to the postgraduate course to follow the course on nutrimetabolomics. This field has emerged during the last decade and has quickly become a key analytical strategy in nutrition science.

NuGO seeks to promote nutrition research on an international scale but this goal is also reached by the local activities of each of the NuGO member institutes. The organization of NuGOweek 2019 by Agroscope in Bern was thus a unique opportunity to promote nutrition research in Switzerland. Notably, a satellite meeting of NuGOweek 2019, set up by the national committee of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) on Thursday afternoon 12th September, brought together 71 specialists from 45 institutes representing the major stakeholders of the agriculture, food and nutrition sector in Switzerland to address the future of nutrition research. In addition, NuGOweek 2019 highlights were featured during the annual meeting of the Swiss Society of Nutrition (SSN), which took place on Friday 13th September.

Agroscope was honoured to organize the first NuGOweek in Switzerland. Those visiting the capital city for the first time realized that Bern is an accessible city with a beautiful old town registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a stunning landscape marked by the Aare river and surrounding hills. The participants took the opportunity to discover Bern during their stay. The gala dinner on Wednesday evening took place on the Gurten, the Bern local ‘mountain’. The gala dinner was the chance to discover Bern from above and renew the connections among the fellow NuGO participants while walking to the farm-restaurant or sharing a drink. Most memorably, the gala dinner was spiked with emotional speeches associated with the departures of key NuGO persons from management positions, including Lorraine Brennan (CEO) and Baukje De Roos (CEO), Pepping Fré (Secretary), and John Mathers (Chair). These positions will be taken over by Michael Müller (CEO), Lydia Afman (Secretary) and Guy Vergères (Chair).

“Es lebe NuGOweek2019 in Bern, viva NuGOweek 2020 in Taragona”!