This project is focused on understanding the role of nutrition in health and disease and how we can exploit that knowledge to be of specific benefit. Folate is an essential B vitamin that is known to be important in the development of birth defects, cancer and potentially cardiovascular disease. This proposed project is focused on a newly identified human gene that is known to be important in breaking down folate to a form that is useful for the cell. Specifically, it helps cells make new DNA but given its recent discovery a detailed analysis of its role in health and disease has not been extensively investigated to date. This project will address essential questions that have remain unanswered up to now, but are crucial for the further understanding the role of folate in human health and in the development of new drugs for disease treatment.
