CSI Seminar Naima Moustaid-Moussa, Yinping Jiao, Oak-Hee Park, May 12 at 11 AM CT

The Center for Sorghum Improvement (CSI) will host a virtual seminar given by Naima Moustaid-Moussa, Executive Director of Institute for One Health Innovation, Horn Distinguished Professor of Nutrition & One Health at Texas Tech University (TTU) School of Veterinary Medicine and Professor of Cell Biology & Biochemistry at the TTHSC School of Medicine, Yinping Jiao, Assistant Professor, IGCAST, Plant and Soil Science at TTU and Oak-Hee Park, Assistant Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences at TTU. The seminar will take place virtually on Tuesday, May 12 at 11:00 AM CT. Their  talk, titled “Sorghum, from production to human consumption: A climate-smart, food-based approach to address inflammatory metabolic diseases,” highlights the nutritional and health-promoting potential of wholegrain sorghum through integrated metabolomic, biological, and consumer-based analyses.

The abstract of the presentation is provided below:

 Food-based approaches are increasingly recognized as effective and sustainable strategies for preventing and managing metabolic and chronic disorders that are characterized by inflammation as an underlying cause. Sorghum is a gluten-free cereal grain and an important dietary source of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds, including those with potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Despite its promise as a functional food, systematic studies linking the metabolite composition of wholegrain sorghum to specific health benefits remain limited. In this presentation, we will present our findings from (1) untargeted metabolomic profiling of wholegrain samples from six diverse sorghum lines, representing a gradient of seed coat colors from white to dark red. Comparative analysis revealed 

substantial variation in chemical composition, with a rich and diverse spectrum of bioactive constituents, including vitamins, phenolic acids, flavonoids. Moreover, (2) we conducted subsequent cell-based assays that demonstrated potent anti-inflammatory effects of sorghum extracts in adipocytes without toxic effects. Lastly, (3), we assessed consumer perceptions about newly developed sorghum-based foods and recipes to confirm sorghum foods as sustainable diets. Despite the null exposures of sorghum from the current U.S. market, sorghum-based foods had a good acceptance and purchase intentions among U.S. college students. Moreover, addressing barriers related to taste, flavor, and culinary familiarity may facilitate broader utilization of sorghum. Collectively, these insights highlight the importance of incorporating whole grain sorghum as part of healthy dietary patterns to meet nutritional needs, promote health and manage chronic metabolic diseases. We further highlight the critical role of transdisciplinary research from production to consumption to provide science-based evidence for metabolic benefits of sorghum.