The Center for Human Nutrition has been awarded grants totaling $750,000 to establish the Clinical Nutrition Research Scholars program. The Noble Foundation of Ardmore, Okla., contributed $500,000 over five years to support two scholars. A contribution from a Dallas foundation will support a third scholar for five years.

Dr. Scott Grundy, director of the CHN, calls the Noble Foundation grant a milestone in nutrition research. "Despite the fact that nutrition is such an important subject for the medical profession, there have been no established pathways for training outstanding young physicians to do research in clinical nutrition."

Clinical Nutrition Scholars will be selected from physicians who have completed a residency and a two-year specialty fellowship. Candidates for scholars will be proposed by senior faculty at UT Southwestern Medical School. Each position will be awarded for a period of three to five years. The Research Scholars will be liaisons with the health science center's collaborating departments and its outstanding research scientists.

Investigators presently studying the atherosclerosis problem include Drs. Joseph Goldstein, Michael Brown, John Dietschy and David Bilheimer. The Center for Human Nutrition has been at the forefront of testing diet and drugs to control blood lipid levels.

Collaborative research on diabetes will be directed by Drs. Roger Unger and Daniel Foster, both Banting Award winners. Research on cancer and nutrition will be in cooperation with Dr. Michael Bennett, a pathologist and expert on tumor biology.

Dr. Charles Y.K. Pak, chief of the Mineral Metabolism Unit, will direct research into nutrition and osteoporosis. Dr. Ricardo Uauy, an authority on pediatric nutrition who is now doing research into the feeding of low-birth-weight premature infants, will direct a study on the effect of early diet on plasma lipids and cholesterol in children.

The Noble Foundation was established by Lloyd Noble in 1945 in memory of his father, Samuel Roberts Noble, an early-day merchant in southern Oklahoma. The foundation is actively engaged in basic biomedical research as well as in agricultural research and consultation. The foundation also makes grants to support higher education, health research and health delivery organizations. John F. Snodgrass is its president.