Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Nutrigenomics, the study of nutritional influences on the genome, is an emerging field with tremendous potential to optimize health and prevent disease. The field is quickly advancing due to technological progress in genomics, epigenomics and transcriptomics. The Canadian nutrigenomics industry lags behind US and European markets, which means there is tremendous potential for growth as consumer and health care professional demand is increasing for effective interface tools to use this new technology in Canada. dnaPower, a unique and emerging nutrigenomics company based in British Columbia's lower mainland, wishes to capitalize on this market gap in delivering this technology to consumer and business markets. They seek to be an industry leader in Canada and beyond. Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) will partner with dnaPower to rigorously examine the effectiveness of the company's existing products to generate improved user interface tools. The company will use the results immediately to improve and diversify their products both for the consumer market and their new focus, the health professional business market. This project will help them compete and gain market advantage in this rapidly moving field. KPU will benefit from building a new partnership with a company that is at the forefront of an important new health field. KPU students and faculty will have the rare opportunity to engage in and further advance the rapidly emerging field of nutrigenomics.