Grant Opportunities

At the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences research serves as the foundation for our actions. See our current grant opportunities below.

Current Opportunities:

Request for Proposals to Evaluate Printing Colorants and Components that Impact Safety & Quality of Recycled Resins for Food Contact Applications.

The IAFNS Food Packaging Safety and Sustainability Committee is please to share this Request for Proposals to Evaluate Printing Colorants and Components that Impact Safety & Quality of Recycled Resins for Food Contact Applications.

Food contact materials, including food packaging, can contain intentionally or unintentionally added substances. Some of these are integral to the packaging materials, such as inks and colorants. Chemical inks are used for a variety of applications, including printing batch identification information and sell-by dates.

Inks, being complex mixtures of low molecular weight substances (photoinitiators, aromatic amines, pigments, etc.) may under certain conditions generate toxicologically relevant NIAS. This issue is exacerbated in resins that are recycled more than once, subjected to extreme heat during recycling, or undergo ineffective cleaning technology. Residual ink-derived substances may also introduce chemical contaminants, affect odor and taste, and create processing defects such as specks, gels, and discoloration. These issues can compromise the suitability of PCR for food-contact applications and highlight the need to better understand how ink components behave during recycling.

This project will develop a framework that links ink class and component fate during recycling to PCR safety and quality, enabling more practical guidance for packaging design. Specifically, the project will identify colorants that generate hazardous or restricted chemicals upon recycling. It will also explore methods to effectively remove these chemicals from the recycled material, thus maintaining its suitability for food contact applications. Additionally, the project will identify existing pigments and inks that are compatible with recycling.

Proposal Deadline: August 31, 2026

Full Details are here.

IAFNS Graduate Student and Post-Doc Stipends for Research Using the Comprehensive Fiber Database

The IAFNS Carbohydrates Committee is pleased to announce it is accepting applications for the above project.

Publication and travel stipends are available on an ad hoc basis for graduate students and post-docs who complete research based primarily on the Comprehensive Fiber Database developed and maintained by Tufts University with funding from IAFNS.

The database: https://iafns.org/our-work/research-tools-open-data/dietary-fiber-database/

Supported projects may include evidence reviews of fiber and health outcomes and knowledge or gaps analysis of a specific area of fiber as it relates to human health. Other uses may also be considered as long as the database is a primary tool used in conduct and analysis.

Travel Awards: Up to 2 travel awards may be granted annually to reimburse up to US $1,000 each to cover meeting registration or travel for a graduate student or post-doc to present in an oral or poster presentation a project in which the Comprehensive Fiber Database serves as the basis for analysis.

Publications: Awards will be granted on an ad hoc basis up to US $4,000 in the form of reimbursed fees for free access to a peer-reviewed paper accepted for publication by a student currently enrolled in a nutrition or food science graduate program. The same would apply to a post-doc in food science or nutrition who is the first author on a paper for which the Fiber Database is a primary tool for analysis.

Details and full instructions can be found in this form.

Please submit proposals at your convenience. Applications will be reviewed every 8 weeks. For further questions please contact blyle@iafns.org.

Scientific integrity is a core value of IAFNS. Learn how we embed scientific integrity into every step of our research process.

View Current Areas of Work

Learn How We Work

Where indirect costs are permitted, they can not exceed 10%.

Projects Funded by IAFNS:

IAFNS's mission is to advance food safety and nutrition science for the benefit of public health. View projects funded by IAFNS below, and learn how we embed scientific integrity into every step of our research process.

Bacteriophage Engineering for Rapid Pathogen Detection

The development of pragmatic rapid detection methods benefit the food manufacturer, retailer and consumer. It has been estimated that cost of foodborne illness from sickness, hospitalizations and deaths reaches $152 billion annually in the United States. Although the United States has one of the safest food supplies, there exists significant potential for improvement. The rapid […]

Systematic Review of the Health Effects Associated with Consumption of Caffeine in Humans

To date, one of the most heavily cited assessments of caffeine safety in the peer-reviewed literature is that issued by Health Canada (Nawrot et al., 2003). Since then, >10,000 papers have been published related to caffeine. An update to this review will serve the public health by providing an updated based on all the literature […]

Perinatal Choline Status and Cognitive Function

Perinatal nutrition plays a critical role in neurodevelopmental patterns, and specific periods of sensitivity have been identified during which deficiency of even a single nutrient can negatively impact long-term cognitive and behavioral measures. Recent human and rodent studies suggest provision of choline may help to not only support structural neurodevelopment, but also promote cognitive function, […]

Evaluating the Association between Dietary Exposure to Inorganic Arsenic on Health Outcomes for the US Population

Chronic adverse health effects have been observed with exposure to high levels of inorganic arsenic. The health effects related to lower levels inorganic arsenic exposure have not been established. The aim of this study is to evaluate longitudinal cohort studies for their utility in estimating dietary inorganic arsenic exposure and quantifying statistically reliable associations with […]

Partially Hydrogenated Oils: Dose Response Evaluation

There is evidence of a significant dose-dependent linear relationship between industrial trans fatty acids (iTFA) intake from partially hydrogenated oils and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), a validated surrogate marker of coronary heart disease risk. The aim of this study is to conduct a meta-regression of controlled clinical trial data to investigate quantitatively the relationship between dietary […]

Quantitative Modeling for Biomarker Assessment of Carbohydrate Metabolism

It is now appreciated that the many pathways leading to oncogenesis result in changes in cellular metabolism and the ability of the tumors environmental nutritional state to directly couple to its capacity for growth. One of the first molecularly defined differences between normal tissue and cancerous growth was the observations that the tumor tissue exhibited […]

Identifying Genomic and Microbiome Influence on Response to Dietary Interventions for Improved Lipid Parameters

Metabolic syndrome, whose clinical manifestations include central obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and elevated glucose levels, results in greatly increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Changes in diet and physical activity can prevent and even reverse manifestations of metabolic syndrome, but current dietary recommendations fail to account for important factors, such as the individual’s genome […]

Sodium and Potassium in the Food Supply: A Model to Predict Intakes and Health Outcomes

The dietary sodium-to-potassium ratio is shown to be more strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD-related mortality than either sodium or potassium intake alone. The aim was to estimate the sodium-to-potassium ratio in the diet of US adults. Institution: USDA Agricultural Research Service Principal Investigator: Alanna Moshfegh, MS, RD Amount Awarded: […]

Trans Fatty Acids and Cholesterol Levels: An Evidence Map of the Available Science

The aim of this project is to characterize the existing literature regarding intervention trials on industrial trans fatty acid intake as a substitute for cis-monounsaturated fatty acids or saturated fatty acids and resulting changes in LDL- or HDL-cholesterol. Institution: Biofortis Principal Investigator: DeAnn Liska, PhD Year Awarded: 2014 Read more: Trans fatty acids and cholesterol […]

Nutrition-Toxicity Interactions in Daphnia pulex: Developing an Alternative Model Organism for Early Life Exposures

As a well-known eco-toxicological model organism, Daphnia pulex may also offer advantages in human health research for assessing long-term effects of early life exposures to coupled stressors. This study will serve as a proof-of-concept for the use of Daphnia pulex as a screening model organism for long-term effects of exposure to multiple stressors in early […]

Forging an Understanding of the Double-Edged Iron Sword and Immunity

Upon infection, the host and pathogen compete to acquire, utilize and store essential iron. The goal of this project is to understand how iron nutrition contributes to infectious disease pathogenesis and clinical outcomes. This information can be utilized to determine how to best intervene in regions with high dual burdens of iron deficiency malnutrition and […]

« Previous
1
…
8
9
10