Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, China	MD	1988	Preventive Medicine
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Chicago, Illinois	MPH	1993	Epidemiology
University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Chicago, Illinois	PhD	1996	Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston	Postdoctoral Fellowship	1999	Nutritional Epidemiology

Dr. Frank Hu is Chair of Department of Nutrition, Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Hu received his MD from Tongji Medical College in China and MPH and PhD in Epidemiology from University of Illinois at Chicago. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Nutritional Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Hu’s major research interests include epidemiology and prevention of cardiometabolic diseases through diet and lifestyle; gene-environment interactions; nutritional omics and precision nutrition; and nutrition transitions in low- and middle-income countries. Currently, he serves as Director of Dietary Biomarker Development Center at Harvard University. He has published a textbook on Obesity Epidemiology (Oxford University Press) and >1500 peer-reviewed papers with an H-index of 320. He served on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease, the Obesity Guideline Expert Panel, American Heart Association Nutrition Committee, and the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, USDA/HHS. He has served on the editorial boards of Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, Diabetes Care, and Clinical Chemistry. Dr. Hu was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015.

Dr. Frank Hu’s research has focused on diet/lifestyle, metabolic, and genetic determinants of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (CVD). His major research interests include epidemiology and prevention of cardiometabolic diseases through diet and lifestyle; gene-environment interactions and risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes; nutritional metabolomics in type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease; and obesity, metabolic phenotypes, and cardiovascular disease in low and middle-income countries. Dr. Hu’s group has conducted detailed analyses of many dietary and lifestyle factors and risk of diabetes and CVD, including sugar-sweetened beverages, coffee, red meat, saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, iron, and dietary patterns in large prospective cohort studies including the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. These findings have contributed to current public health recommendations and policies for the prevention of chronic diseases. His group has also identified novel biomarkers and gene-environment interactions in relation to risk of obesity and diabetes by integrating cutting-edge omics technologies into epidemiological studies, advancing the field of precision nutrition. Dr. Hu has established long-term collaborations with the PREDIMED investigators in examining the effects of Mediterranean diet interventions on changes in plasma metabolites and gut microbiome and risk of type 2 diabetes and CVD. He has also conducted extensive research on nutrition transition, metabolic phenotypes, and cardiovascular disease in low and middle-income countries.