The Trustees of the Howard Foundation are delighted to announce the extension of the Howard Chair in Human Nutrition at the South East Technological University in Waterford, Ireland. This was awarded initially to Professor John Nolan in 2014, extended to ten years in 2016 and is now extended by a further five years to run until 2031.
Professor Nolan published his first paper from research into eye disease in 2005. Dr Alan Howard met Professor Nolan in 2009 after which the Foundation sponsored further research focussing on the benefits from nutritional supplementation of the three carotenoids – lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin.
In 2011, Professor Nolan won the prestigious European Research Council Starting Grant to conduct the Central Retinal Enrichment Supplementation Trials (CREST). This work essentially confirmed the scientific discovery that the use of meso-zeaxanthin, in conjunction with lutein and zeaxanthin (the three nutritional pigments that are found at the back of the eye), can enhance vision in healthy subjects and in patients with age-related macular degeneration (the leading cause of blindness in the western world). In the same year, they founded BON, Brain and Ocular Nutrition, network of scientists which has its next international conference in Boston USA, 17-20 June 2024.
Dr Howard and Professor Nolan continued their joint research until the death of Dr Howard in 2020. This collaboration led to the creation of the Memory Investigation with Nutrition for Dementia (Re-MIND) trial, published in 2022, which showed benefits to patients with Alzheimer’s Disease from nutritional supplementation with the same three carotenoids together with vitamin E and omega 3 fatty acids.
Professor Nolan says: “I am extremely grateful to the Howard Foundation for their continued support of our research, and my position as Howard Chair in Human Nutrition. Dr Howard worked all his life as a scientist, conducting projects from one research grant to the next. He spoke to me always about the challenges of being a scientist and the instability due to funding requirements. This is why he wanted to support a Chair at SETU to allow me to continue my work and support other scientists at our research centre.”
Professor Nolan obtained his PhD at the Waterford Institute of Technology and won a Fulbright Scholarship to work at the Medical College of Georgia, USA. He returned to Waterford and formed the Macular Pigment Research Group. In 2016 he founded the Nutrition Research Centre Ireland which is now part of the South East Technological University in Waterford.
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