Jim Kaput

Jim Kaput joined the FDA/National Center for Toxicological Research (Jefferson, AR) as Director of the Division of Personalized Nutrition and Medicine (DPNM) in November 2007.  He also has adjunct appointments in the Division of Genetics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Adinovo Center for Genetic & Genomic Medicine at Zhejing University (Hangzhou, China). Dr. Kaput is author of 47 peer reviewed publications and book chapters.  Wiley and Sons published Nutritional Genomics: Discovering the Path to Personalized Nutrition (eds J Kaput and RL Rodriguez) in 2006 and it is being translated into Chinese and Portuegese.  As founder and sole contributor to NutriAlerts, he emails comments about research articles related to nutrigenomics, nutrition, epidemiology, statistics, health disparities, publich health issues, ethics, and health issues in transitional and developing economies to ~2425 subscribers in over 50 countries.  Over 1200 postings have been made since 2002. The commentaries and abstracts are posted at the European Nutrigenomics Organization website  (http://www.nugo.org/nutrialerts) since Fall 2008.  He has given over 115 presentations and workshops in 21 countries during the last 7 years.  Fourteen of these presentations were 2 - 10 hr-long workshops on nutritional genomics at institutions in the U.S. and 6 foreign countries.  These workshops formed the basis of an online class offered through the University of California Davis (Spring 2006).  He co-organized 3 international conferences in the U.S. ('04, '06, '07) and was on the scientific advisory board for conferences in New Zealand ('05, '06, '10), Canada ('07), and Brazil ('07, '10), and advisor to the New Zealand Centre of Excellence in Nutrigenomics ('03-'07).  He was the only American on an international committee to review Food Science Australia (Spring '09). He also is an active member of the Human Variome Project (http://www.humanvariome.org) which seeks to seeks to analyze genetic variation in individuals in ancestral groups around the world.  Dr. Kaput received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant in Global/Public Health for a two week visit to the State University of São Paulo, Brazil (October '07).

Dr. Kaput received his PhD from Colorado State University in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  He spent 5 years as a postdoctoral fellow and assistant professor at the Rockefeller University in the laboratory of GÜnter Blobel, the 1999 Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine.  Dr. Kaput was a staff and Biochemistry faculty member at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and Director of the Northwestern University Biotechnology Laboratory for 2 years.  Dr. Kaput was in a series of biotechnology companies (some of which he founded and managed) from 1998 through 2007.

Director
Division of Personalized Nutrition and Medicine
FDA/National Center for Toxicological Research
Jefferson, AR  72079
James.Kaput@fda.hhs.gov

Summer 2009