As part of CTSI’s Clinical Research Services program, Cewin Chao, MS, RD, MBA, works as the Director of Clinical Research Services, Bionutrition Services Core.
How long have you been working at UCSF?
A little over 7 years.
What do you do at UCSF and how is it connected to the UCSF mission?
I am responsible for coordinating the overall operation of the nutrition research core, which includes the metabolic kitchen team as well as research dietitians.
What are the most challenging and rewarding parts of your job?
Nutrition and food are science topics that everyone can relate to; it brings an intimidating topic for many to a very comfortable and personal level.
What do you like most about working in bionutrition?
There is such a wide range of interesting tasks and responsibilities for this position. On any given day, I may be involved in counseling a post-islet cell transplant patient on his or her low-carbohydrate, low-glycemic index diet. Later that day, I may be collaborating with my team to design a research meal looking at the effects of saturated fat on cardiovascular outcomes (by taste-testing entrees with NY Strip steak). Then in the afternoon, I could be reviewing dietary folate intake in weaning infants to identify the “top five foods” associated with early obesity in the Latino cohort enrolled in a pediatric clinical trial. I’m fortunate to be part of such a vibrant research community.
What's something that your colleagues or members of the UCSF community might be surprised to know about you?
I have been involved in some aspect of nutrition research since high school. While attending the Bronx High School of Science, I volunteered at a basic science lab at Mount Sinai Medical Center and worked with an animal model of Type I diabetes. Syrian hamsters infected with rubella virus in the neonatal period went on to develop Type I diabetes. Data from this study suggested that an auto-immune process may be responsible for this effect.
During my junior year in college at Cornell University, I spent a semester abroad participating in global health and international nutrition projects. I lived in Beijing and worked as a research associate at the National Institute of Preventive Medicine. For six months, I engaged in a collaborative project with the World Health Organization. While there, I studied the prevalence and prevention of childhood anemia.
My graduate work at Rush University in Chicago addressed the relationship between total dietary tocopherol intake in early and mid-adult life and subsequent development of Alzheimer’s disease. This longitudinal, retrospective study was fascinating work in nutritional epidemiology.
In my early career as a clinical pediatric dietitian at Johns Hopkins, I was very fortunate to be included in a double-blind, randomized, clinical trial on the effects of fructo-oligosaccharides in weaning infants. Finally, for the past decade, I have been the nutrition research manager of clinical research centers in academic health centers. I was at the GCRC (the predecessor of CTSI’s Clinical Research Services program) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor for four years prior to my current position here.
If you chose another career path outside UCSF what would it be?
I’d like to be involved in a career that would either (1) enable me to travel internationally and utilize my Mandarin skills, or (2) be a judge on the television program, “So you think you can dance?”
CTSI Spotlight is part of an ongoing series that offers an opportunity for faculty and staff to learn more about the wide range of people who make CTSI's work possible. See all featured faculty and staff.