Science Symposium in conjunction with ILSI SEA Region 2023 Annual Meeting – ReThink Nutrient Recommendations for Optimizing Health and Harmonizing Approaches

Assoc. Prof. Emorn Udomkesmalee, Mahidol University, Thailand
Prof. Emorn Udomkesmalee is the Senior Advisor and Former Director of the Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, Thailand. She holds a current position of Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of International Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, USA. Internationally, she’s the former Board Chair of IFPRI; former Member of the Board of Directors of the Micronutrient Forum and currently serves on the Standing Together for Nutrition (ST4N) Consortium; Technical Advisory Group for Global Anemia Exemplars; Scientific Committee of Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy as well as Scientific Director of ILSI Southeast Asia Region. At national level, she holds the position of the Eminent Panel member under the National Policy Council on Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation; Chair of Sub-Committee on Agriculture and Nutrition, Office of Atoms for Peace (Thailand) as well as Board member of Ajinomoto Foundation/Thailand.
Her research interests include micronutrients; efficacy of food-based interventions; maternal and child nutrition policy and program implementation. She received her Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry and metabolism from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA in 1985. Her post-doctoral training was at the Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Laboratory, Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, USDA, Beltsville, Maryland, USA (1987).

Dr. Tee E Siong, SEA-PHN Network, Malaysia
Dr. E Siong Tee has been a Member of the Board of Directors of ILSI SEA Region since 1996 and Scientific Coordinator of ILSI Malaysia Country Committee since 2005. He is currently a Nutrition Consultant for TES NutriHealth Strategic Consultancy. Dr. Tee was Head of the Cardiovascular, Diabetes and Nutrition Research Centre of the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, until his retirement in February 2002, after serving for 30 years. He was Nutrition Advisor to the Food Safety and Quality Division of the Ministry of Health Malaysia from 2002-2011. In that capacity, Dr. Tee was Chairperson or member of several technical committees related to food regulations and Codex Alimentarius. He is still a member of the National Advisory Committee on Food Regulations and several Codex sub-committees. Dr. Tee is also President of the Nutrition Society of Malaysia (NSM). In this capacity, he has led the implementation of various community nutrition promotion programs. He represents NSM in several Technical Working Groups in the Ministry of Health Malaysia, including the National Coordinating Committee for Food and Nutrition (NCCFN) and the Technical Working Group for Nutritional Guidelines. He initiated the formation of the Southeast Asia Public Health Nutrition (SEA-PHN) Network and is the current Chairman of the Network. Dr Tee is also Adjunct Professor of the International Medical University, Malaysia.

Prof. Manfred Eggersdorfer, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Prof. Manfred Eggersdorfer studied chemistry at the Technical University Munich and did his PhD in organic chemistry in the field of synthesis and characterization of unusual amino acids. He was post-doc at the Stanford-University, California working with Carl Djerassi on the isolation and characterization of sterols from marine origin as potential contraceptives.
He joined Roche in 1999 as Head of R+D Vitamins and continued in this responsibility after DSM acquired this business in 2003.
Since 2013 Manfred Eggersdorfer holds the chair for Healthy Ageing at the University Medical Center Groningen (NL) and teaches nutrition for medical students. His scientific work focuses on the role of essential nutrients for health, vitality, and well-being, especially on the impact of inadequate intake and status of micronutrients over the life cycle with a focus on long term health and healthy ageing.
He is active as member of the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and he acts as Board member of the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Vitaminforschung e.V in Germany. He is author of numerous publications in the fields of vitamins, carotenoids, omega-3-polyunsaturated fatty acids and nutraceuticals for infants, adults, elderly and risk groups and on innovation in nutritional ingredients. He engages as reviewer for a variety of journals and is Associate Editor of the “International Journal of Vitamin and Nutrition Research” and other journals.

Dr. Andrew Bartholomaeus, BartCrofts Pty Ltd, Australia
Dr. Andrew Bartholomaeus is currently the CEO of BartCrofts Pty Ltd, which specializes in providing toxicological and regulatory scientific services for a variety of chemical food safety issues. He also holds extramural appointments as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland Medical School, Australia and an Adjunct Professor of Toxicology and Pharmacy at the University of Canberra, Australia. Before his current position, Dr. Bartholomaeus was the General Manager of the Risk Assessment Branch at Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) until his retirement in 2012. During his time at FSANZ, he also served as the chair during the FAO/WHO Expert Consultation on ‘The Application of Nanotechnologies in Food and Agriculture Sectors: Potential Food Safety Implications’. From 2004 to 2008, he was the Chief Toxicologist at the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of Australia, with responsibilities in the area of preclinical assessment and in leading the TGA’s response to the Australian National Nanotechnology Strategy.
Dr. Bartholomaeus was previously a member of the ILSI International Food Biotechnology Committee (IFBiC) Steering Group. He is also a member of the Society of Toxicology and Australasian College of Toxicology and Risk Assessment (ACTRA). Dr. Bartholomaeus obtained his B.S. degree in Pharmacy from the University of Sydney and PhD in Toxicology from RMIT University, Australia.

Prof. Anitra Carr, University of Otago, New Zealand
Prof. Anitra Carr is Director of the Nutrition in Medicine Research Group at the University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand. Anitra is a biomedical researcher and international key opinion leader on the role of vitamin C in human health and disease. Following a PhD at UOC, Anitra undertook an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University, USA. Whilst there she produced a number of high impact publications on the role of vitamin C in human health and disease which helped inform US dietary recommendations for vitamin C (IOM 2000). Following a return to New Zealand, Anitra began carrying out a translational research program comprising human intervention studies investigating the bioavailability and potential health effects of vitamin C which has helped inform EU dietary recommendations for vitamin C (EFSA 2013). More recently she has carried out research into the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic diseases such as infection, cancer and diabetes. In 2016 Anitra was awarded a 4-year New Zealand Health Research Council Fellowship to investigate the role of vitamin C in severe infections such as pneumonia and sepsis, two major complications of COVID-19. In 2021, Anitra was invited by the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2022 (NNR2022) committee to update vitamin C recommendations for the 8 Nordic and Baltic countries. Anitra is Associate Editor for the journal Nutrition Research and a long-time member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Nutrients and Antioxidants. Anitra was recently awarded a Gold Medal for sustained research excellence.

Prof. Chin-Kun Wang, Chung Shan Medical University, Taiwan
Prof. Chin-Kun Wang is a distinguished professor in Chung Shan Medical University (CSMU), Executive Councillor of International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST)., Former President of International Society for Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods (ISNFF), Fellows of IAFoST and ISNFF, Honorary President of Nutrition Society of Taiwan. He got his Ph.D. degree from National Taiwan University and worked at Chung Shan Medical University in 1993. In 1996, he promoted as a full professor, and then took the positions of the Chair, Dean, Vice President and President in CSMU. His research work is focused on human clinical trials and human metabolism of medicine, nutritional supplement, nutraceuticals, herbs, and functional foods. Recently he also pays great attention on precision nutrition by using big data. He got the National Award of Biomedicine for his great contribution to the medical education in 2008. He also got the awards of outstanding research of many societies from 2009 to 2022. For food safety and nutrition, he promoted the legislation for school sanitary law and national nutrition law. In the future, he tries his best to work together with the scientists around the world and would like to promote the advanced development of food science and technology.

Ms. Wei Tang, Nutrition External Engagement (Asia), Unilever China
Ms. Wei Tang is Regional Head of Nutrition External Engagement (Asia) of Unilever. Ms. Tang supports Unilever’s external nutrition and health-related programs and collaboration across Asia. She has 16 years of working experience in Research & Development at various positions related to Nutrition & Science, Product Development and Scientific Affairs in France and China. She joined Unilever in 2017 as Regional Head of Nutrition External Engagement for North Asia and expanded her responsibility to Southeast Asia and Australasia (SEAA) region from 2018. Ms. Tang obtained her M.Sc. in Biology and Innovation in Quality and Productions of Vegetable respectively at University Paris XIII and University Paris XI.