The American Society for Nutrition has awarded CPHHS Nutrition Professor Maret Traber the 2013 Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Nutritional Sciences Award.
The award is given in recognition of recent investigative contributions of significance to the basic understanding of human nutrition.
“This is a tremendous honor,” Maret says. “To be recognized by one’s peers is thrilling. I never expected that I would be honored by the American Society for Nutrition. This is the most prestigious nutrition society in the world. I have been attending these meetings since I was a graduate student, where I would be in awe of the recipients when I attended the awards ceremony.”
Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition and Preventive Health Director Emily Ho, who nominated Maret for the award, describes Maret as being one of the world’s leading experts on Vitamin E.
“She pioneered the use of deuterium-labeled Vitamin E for studies evaluating Vitamin E status in humans,” Emily says, “And her studies caused a paradigm shift in our understanding of the mechanisms regulating Vitamin E availability in humans. She recognizes unsolved problems in Vitamin E pathophysiology and applies novel strategies to resolve these problems.”
Maret’s research has gained international recognition and has provided evidence-based information for Vitamin E requirements in humans.
In addition to her work teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate Nutrition students at Oregon State University, Maret is frequently asked to speak at national and international conferences.
“Dr. Traber is extremely passionate about her research, and this translates to an enthusiastic nature in her teaching,” Emily says.
She has served on the National Academy of Sciences; Institute of Medicine Panel on Dietary Antioxidants and Related Compounds; Foods and Nutrition Board panel for antioxidant nutrients; and on nutrition-related National Institutes of Health (NIH) study sections. She served as associate editor for the journal Lipids and on the editorial board for the Journal of Nutrition, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and Free Radical Biology & Medicine.
“All of these journals are some the of highest impact journals in their respective fields,” Emily says. “She also has been highly successful in obtaining extramural funding for her research. She has brought in more than $3.14 million to the university through grants funding by the NIH and USDA.”
Maret is currently involved in an intricate clinical trial that is being held at the NIH with her collaborator, Mark Levine.
“We hope to start recruiting subjects this year,” she says. “We hope to evaluate measures that will show how much Vitamin E and how much Vitamin C is required by normal healthy women. We are also exploring whether these requirements increase if you are obese or have diabetes and obesity.”