ARKANSAS CHILDREN S HOSPITAL - ARKANSAS CHILDREN S NUTRITION CENTER

Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC) was established in 1994 thanks to Dr. Robert Fiser, then chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Dr. Fiser, now retired, was an extremely innovative and creative leader whose primary focus was the health concerns of children and their families. His medical and research specialty in pediatric endocrinology gave him a profound knowledge in metabolism and nutrition that helped him better grasp the issues surrounding early nutrition and its potential in improving children’s development and preventing diseases later in life. Dr. Fiser recruited Dr. Thomas M. Badger and Senator Dale Bumpers, then chairman of the Senate Agricultural Appropriations Committee, to help him win USDA funding for the ACNC and to build Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC).

The ACNC is one of six centers in the national Human Nutrition Research Center (HNRC) Program which is funded through the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center is the newest Center and only the second to focus on pediatric nutrition.

The ACNC is the only HNRC Center to not be housed in a federal building. The 50, 000 square foot ACNC building was funded strictly by private donations from Arkansans. It is located on the campus of Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH), which is the sixth largest children’s hospital in the United States, and partners with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. With the $17.1 million expansion completed in 2005, the Center now offers approximately 54, 000 square feet of research space which includes 14 basic science laboratories, a large outpatient unit, a six bed live-in research unit, a unique brain development and function laboratory with multiple testing rooms, and a nutritional assessment laboratory. Our facility, adjacent to Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, provides us access to cutting-edge research being done in all fields of pediatrics.

The mission of the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center is to conduct research on the dietary needs that will: optimize the health of children from conception through adolescence; and maximize their health as adults, especially during aging. In accomplishing this mission, children and their families are studied relative to commonly eaten foods, and animal and cellular models are developed and utilized. Animal studies are conducted to establish new hypotheses, test existing ones and to clarify basic metabolic function of nutrients and dietary factors in common foods. Controlled human dietary, metabolic and behavioral studies provide data necessary for evidence-based recommendations and for governmental policy decisions that promote healthy and safe human development.