The MRC International Nutrition Group (MRC ING) will become fully integrated into the MRC Unit The Gambia with effect from 1 April 2014. The move follows ING’s successful bid for renewed funding (2014-2019).
Nutrition will become a fourth theme within The Gambia Unit and will continue to be led by Professor Andrew Prentice. The merger is intended to build upon the many synergies that already exist and to accelerate The Unit's translational science aimed at building the evidence base for interventions to save lives and improve health across the developing world.

Welcoming the ING’s incorporation, Professor Umberto D’Alessandro, Director of the MRC’s Gambia Unit said:
We are already mapping a number of new and exciting possibilities that will result from this merger. Undoubtedly, the incorporation of the ING is a logical move both scientifically and operationally.
The MRC’s unit in The Gambia has an international reputation for ground-breaking research into some of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the tropics, and its research has led to some of the most outstanding successes in tropical medicine.

The MRC ING works to reduce the burden of ill-heath caused by nutritional deficiencies and maternal malnutrition, with a focus on the world’s poorest populations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.
For further information, please contact communications@mrc.gm

ABOUT ING

The MRC International Nutrition Group is based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and has a major research centre at MRC Keneba in The Gambia, West Africa.

We also work in Kenya and Tanzania, with additional collaborative studies in other low-income countries, especially Bangladesh. Our primary collaborative centre in the UK is MRC Human Nutrition Research in Cambridge, through which we also run comparative studies in China.

MRC Keneba is embedded within the MRC Unit The Gambia and works with its three themes on Child Survival, Vaccinology and Disease Control & Elimination. We work with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare through close collaborations with the Gambian National Nutrition Agency (NaNA).

Our research focuses largely on maternal and child health and has 4 major research themes concentrating on: nutritional immunology, micronutrient interventions, nutritional genetics and bone health.

ING has an international Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) that meets annually.