J. Bruce German

Professor at Food Science and Technology, University of California Davis

Bruce German received his PhD from Cornell University, joined the faculty at the University of California, Davis in 1988, in 1997 was named the first John E. Kinsella Endowed Chair in Food, Nutrition and Health is currently professor, at University of California, Davis serves as senior scientific advisor at the Nestlé Research Center in Lausanne Switzerland and head of the Scientific Board of Lipomics Technologies Inc in California. His research interests include the structure and function of dietary lipids, the role of milk components in food and health and the application of metabolic assessment to personalizing diet and health.

The goal of his research is to build the knowledge necessary to improve human health through superior foods. Research projects directed to this goal are studying how individual human lipid metabolism responds to the chemical composition and structural organization of foods. Each person has slightly different responses to diet based on their genetics, their metabolism and their nutrition status. It is thus necessary to understand the molecular basis of these differences, how to recognize them and design food strategies to complement them. We are working on analytical strategies to enable individuals to monitor how their body reacts to various foods and to modify their consumption to maintain good health. With health targets established it is the equally important task of the research to understand how to provide superior choices in foods that integrate the compositional, structural and nutritional functionalities of biomaterials. The model being used of how to proceed is milk, the product of millennia of constant Darwinian selective pressure to produce a food to nourish, sustain and promote healthy infant mammals to be healthier http://www.imgconsortium.org/ . Milk is the only bio-material that has evolved for the purpose of nourishing growing mammals. Survival of offspring exerted a strong selective pressure on the biochemical evolution of lactation as a bioguided process. Just as evolution of any biological organism, the strong survive, which leads to the appearance of new traits that promote health, strength and ultimately survival. This evolutionary logic is the basis of the research program to discover physical, functional and nutritional properties of milk components and to apply these properties as principles to foods (http://fgp.ucdavis.edu/index.html).

Bruce and colleagues have published more than 300 papers on lipids and food, metabolism and metabolite measurements and food functions and patented various technologies and applications of bioactive agents. The research articles from the lab rank in the top 10 most cited in Agriculture available at www.ISIhighlycited.com.

Selected publications

• Frankel E.N., Kanner J., German J.B., Parks E. and Kinsella J.E. (1993) Inhibition of oxidation of human low density lipoprotein by phenolic substances in red wine. Lancet 341(8843): 454–457
• Walzem R.L., Watkins S., Frankel E.N., Hansen R.J. and German J.B. (1995) Older plasma lipoproteins are more susceptible to oxidation: a linking mechanism for the lipid and oxidation theories of atherosclerotic disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 92(16): 7460–7464
• Perez R.V., Swanson C., Morgan M., Erickson K., Hubbard N.E. and German J.B. (1997) Portal venous transfusion up regulates Kupffer cell cyclooxygenase activity—A mechanism of immunosuppression in organ transplantation. Transplantation 64(1): 135–139
• Morand L.Z., Patil S., Quasney M. and German J.B. (1998) Alteration of the fatty acid substrate specificity of LPAT by site directed mutagenesis. Biochem Biophys Res Comm 244(1): 79–84
• Watkins, S. M. Hammock, B.D. Newman, J. W. and German J. B. Individual metabolism should guide agriculture toward foods for improved health and nutrition. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 74, No. 3, 283-286, 2001
• Weiller BH, Ceriotti L, Shibata T, Rein D, Roberts MA, Lichtenberg J, German JB, de Rooij NF, Verpoorte E. Analysis of lipoproteins by CE in microfluidic devices: Anal Chem 2002;74(7):1702-11
• Watkins, Steven M. Peter R. Reifsnyder, Huei-Ju Pan, J. Bruce German, and Edward H. Leiter Lipid metabolome-wide effects of the PPAR gamma agonist rosiglitazone J. Lipid Res. 2002 11: 1809-17
• Ward RE and German JB Zoonutrients and Health Food Technology 2003, Volume 56, No.3: 30-36
• Turini ME, Boza JJ, Gueissaz N, Moennoz D, Montigon F, Vuichoud J, Gremaud G, Pouteau E, Piguet C, Perrin I, Verguet C, Finot PA, German B. Short-term dietary conjugated linoleic acid supplementation does not enhance the recovery of dexamethasone-treated rats Eur J Nutr. 2003 Jun;42(3):171-9
• Ward RE, German JB. Understanding Milk's Bioactive Components: A Goal for the Genomics Toolbox J Nutr. 2004 Apr;134(4):962S-7S
• Ward R.E., Watzke H.J., Jiménez-Flores R. and German J.B. (2004). Bioguided processing: A paradigm change in food production. Food Technology 58(5): 44–48
• German J.B. Dillard C.J. Saturated fats: What dietary intake? Am J of Clinical Nutrition. 80, 550-560 2004
• German J.B., Bauman D.E., Burrin D.G., Failla M.L., Freake H.C., King J.C., Klein S., Milner J.A., Pelto G.H. Rasmussen K.M. and Zeisel. S.H. 2004. Metabolomics in the opening decade of the 21st century: Building the roads to individualized health. Journal of Nutrition 134: 2729–2732
• German J.B., Yeretzian C. and Watzke H.J. Personalizing Foods for Health and Preference. Food Technology 58:12, 26-31, 2004
• Mutch D. David M. Mutch; Martin Grigorov; Alvin Berger; Laurent B Fay; Matthew Roberts, Steven M Watkins; Gary Williamson; J Bruce German An integrative metabolism approach identifies stearoyl-CoA desaturase as a target for an arachidonate-enriched diet. FASEB J. 2005
• German J.B. Hammock B.D. and Watkins S.M. Metabolomics: building on a century of biochemistry to guide human health Metabolomics 1, 1, 3-8
• Ninonuevo MR, Park Y, Yin H, Zhang J, Ward RE, Clowers BH, German JB, Freeman SL, Killeen K, Grimm R, Lebrilla CB. A strategy for annotating the human milk glycome. J Agric Food Chem. 2006 Oct 4;54(20):7471-80.
• Lemay DG, Neville MC, Rudolph MC, Pollard KS, and German JB., Gene regulatory networks in lactation: identification of global principles using bioinformatics BMC Systems Biology epub Nov 2007
• Lange M. C., D. A. Lemay and J. B. German, 2007, Multi-ontology framework to guide agriculture and food toward diet and health, J. Sci. Food Agric. Volume 87, Issue 8, Date: June 2007, 1427.
• Argov N, Wachsmann-Hogiu S, Freeman SL, Huser T, Lebrilla CB, German JB. Size-Dependent Lipid Content in Human Milk Fat Globules. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Jul 26. [Epub ahead of print
• Sela David A. Chapman J., Adeuya A., Kim J.H., Chen F., Whitehead T.R., Lapidus A., Rokhsar D.S., Lebrilla C.B., German J.B, Price N.P., Richardson P.M Mills D.A. *The Complete Genome Sequence of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis Reveals Adaptations for Milk Utilization within the Infant Microbiome Proceedings of the National Academy USA Dec 2;105(48):18964-9)
• Elsink CG, Tellam RL, Wolsey KC et al., The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A window to ruminant biology and evolution Science. 2009 Apr 24;324(5926):522-8.
• Lemay DG, Lynn DJ, Martin WF, Casey TM, Kriventseva EV, Rincon G, Barris WC, Hinrichs AS, Molenaar AJ, Pollard KS, Neville MC, Maqbool NJ, Zdobnov EM, Tellam RL, Medrano JF, German JB, and Rijnkels M. The bovine lactation genome: insights into the evolution of mammalian milk Genome Biol. 2009 Apr 24;10(4):R43.