The Second International Bruce Ames Symposium on Nutritional Genomics will be held at UC Davis, Oct. 12-14, 2007.

The symposium will bring together top researchers and opinion leaders from around the world to discuss the use of genetic and genomic information and nutritional inventions to promote health and prevent disease. It will focus on recent studies that attempt to combine the diverse properties of food with the complex processes involved in heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer.

"If you believe as I do that good nutrition can promote health and prevent disease, then we must address the hard question -- how? This symposium will move the dialogue surrounding foods and health beyond the antioxidant debate to a deeper understanding of how diet works in concert with our genes to reduce disease risk," said Symposium Chair Ray Rodriguez, professor of molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis.

Dean Ornish, professor of clinical medicine at UC San Francisco and director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., will give the keynote address on the evening of Oct. 13. Ornish will speak on "Effects of Comprehensive Changes in Diet and Lifestyle on Gene Expression."

The Ames Symposia are named in honor of Bruce N. Ames, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UC Berkeley and senior scientist at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), for his scholarly achievements and lifelong dedication to human health and nutrition research.

The symposium is organized by the National Center for Minority Health Disparities Center of Excellence in Nutritional Genomics. The center is a partnership between UC Davis, CHORI, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Western Human Nutrition Research Center and the Ethnic Health Institute.

Online registration is now available through UC Davis Conference and Event Services at http://www.cevs.ucdavis.edu/Cofred/Public/Aca/ConfHome.cfm?confid=299.