Maria Fernanda Mujica-Coopman
Postdoctoral Fellow
Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos
Discovery (Biological & Genetic Mechanisms)
My interest in human nutrition research started during my undergraduate studies. I completed my MSc in Human Nutrition at the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology (INTA), University of Chile, in 2015. The main focus of my master thesis was the comparison of iron and zinc supplementation on anemia in Chilean childbearing-aged women. As part of a Canada-Chile Leadership Exchange Scholarship, awarded 2014, I participated in a collaborative project between Drs Yvonne Lamers and Gilberto Kac (Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Brazil). In this project, we studied the physiological changes of vitamin B6 status in Brazilian pregnant women from a prospective cohort study conducted by Dr. Kac.
My PhD research aimed to assess the role of the methyl nutrients folate, vitamin B-6, riboflavin, choline and betaine in relation to epigenetic programming for fetal growth and obesity related genes. I also explored the role of maternal methyl nutrient status on anthropometric birth outcomes such as birth weight and adiposity.
I am now a postdoctoral fellow at the Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos in Chile.
Awards received: UBC Four-Year Doctoral Fellowship (4YF), Canada-Chile Leadership Exchange Scholarship, Latin American Society for Nutrition (SLAN) Leadership Award