BU Research Blog

Dr Simon Dyall has just returned from the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL) 12^th congress in Stellenbosch, South Africa, September 5 to 9^th 2016.

“I wish to express my gratitude to the Department of Human Sciences and Public Health for their support towards my attendance at the congress, and also to the Biochemical Society”.

I presented some of our work on essential fatty acid intake in extremely preterm infants and the interaction between omega-3 fatty acids and endocannabinoid signalling in neural stem cells. The work was extremely well received and I am in the process of following up some exciting new potential collaborations.

The ISSFAL congress is held every two years and is the preeminent scientific conference on fatty acids and lipids. It brings together a wide range of researchers, clinicians, nutritionists and representatives from industry. Of course a major part of conference attendance is the potential to network, and I was able to recruit a few of the speakers to present some lectures on our new MSc in Nutrition and Behaviour.

A major highlight for me was seeing Prof Michael Crawford from Imperial College London, receive the Alexander Leaf Award. Prof Crawford has been a true pioneer in the field of brain chemistry and human nutrition, and hearing him talk about his work is always a pleasure.

We are all now looking forward to the next ISSFAL congress in Las Vegas in 2018, where we are aiming for our PhD students to present their work!

If you are interested in finding out more about this research I will be talking about some of the work on nutrition for preterm infants at the Wellbeing Seminar on October 19th in R208 between 1.00 and 2.00 pm.

Or I can be contacted on sdyall@bournemouth.ac.uk

Oral presentation:

• Dyall, S.C., De Rooy, L. and Hamdallah, H.: Extremely preterm infants receiving standard neonatal intensive care receive very low levels of AA and DHA

Poster presentations:

• Dyall, S.C., De Rooy, L. and Hamdallah, H.: Blood AA and DHA levels correlate with markers of inflammation in extremely preterm infants
• Dyall, S.C., De Rooy, L. and Hamdallah, H.: Variability of breast milk AA and DHA content from mothers of extremely preterm infants
• Dyall, S.C., De Rooy, L. and Hamdallah, H.: Relationships between dietary intake and blood levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in extremely preterm infants
• Dyall, S.C., Mandhair, H., Fincham, R., Kerr, D., Roche, M. and Molina-Holgado, F.:  Eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids increase levels of the endocannabinoid 2-arachadonoylglycerol in neural stem cells