# Determining the Neurodevelopmental Effects of Transition from Breastfeeding to Infant Formula using a Novel Biomarker

> **NIH NIH R00** · ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI · 2020 · $246,929

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 I am an analytical chemist committed to developing new methods to study how infant nutrition influences
health trajectories in early life. In consultation with my mentors, I have developed a training plan to gain
additional skills that will enable me to become an independent transdisciplinary researcher in Nutritional
Epidemiology. The proposed research project will facilitate necessary training and develop a new biomarker
that can quantify breast milk vs formula intake and composition, thereby overcoming a major limitation to the
study of long term impacts of infant nutrition and lay the foundation for future grant applications.
 I have assembled an expert panel of mentors with complementary expertise, covering pediatrics, child
development, epidemiology, nutrition, exposure biology and advanced statistics. Through mentorship, formal
coursework and didactic seminars I will gain knowledge of children's health and nutrition and skills in exposure
biology and advanced statistics. With these new skills, I can follow my long-term career goal of establishing a
competitive, independently funded research program to study infant nutrition and associated long term impacts
on health. While this study focuses on children's neurodevelopment, it is important to note that the knowledge
and skills obtained will be applicable to multiple child health outcomes that may be linked to nutrition (e.g.
obesity, immunological function, allergies and diabetes) and lays the foundation to later include prenatal
nutrition as the biomarker can capture the prenatal period. Specifically, I will 1) gain comprehensive training in
the application of biomarkers to study the association of chemical and dietary factors and health outcomes; 2)
learn the measures used to assess neurodevelopment in children; 3) learn the role of nutrition in infant health;
and 4) learn and gain experience with the statistical tools required to analyze complex multidimensional data.
 There is growing evidence that some adult diseases are programmed through infant diets but studies are
hampered by the lack of a reliable, objective marker that can accurately reconstruct infant diet. The proposed
research project will develop the first objective, temporal biomarker of infant nutrition and will demonstrate its
application to study the effect of infant nutrition on children's neurodevelopment. This biomarker will
reconstruct past diet objectively and quantitatively. We will use state-of-the-art analytical techniques to
determine the distribution of multiple elements in children's teeth. Like trees, teeth contain growth rings that
can be aged and the elemental content of each ring reflects the dietary intake at that time. Our preliminary
results show that specific element signatures can be used to determine diet transitions from exclusive
breastfeeding to infant formula. We will expand upon this work to develop a more robust index that can be
used to determine the duration, dose and composit...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9986850
- **Project number:** 5R00HD087523-05
- **Recipient organization:** ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI
- **Principal Investigator:** Christine Austin
- **Activity code:** R00 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $246,929
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-22 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9986850

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9986850, Determining the Neurodevelopmental Effects of Transition from Breastfeeding to Infant Formula using a Novel Biomarker (5R00HD087523-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9986850. Licensed CC0.

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