Short presentation

Researcher ID: N-2047-2014

Scopus Author ID: 7005496406

Henrik Friis, MD, PhD, former associate professor of epidemiology and current professor of international nutrition and health. The last thirty years he has done research with collaborators in Africa (Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso) and Asia (Cambodia, India, Vietnam). He also has extensive experience as teacher and course organiser at master and PhD-level, from Denmark and abroad, within nutrition, health, and epidemiology.

The focus of his research has been nutrition in relation to infections (ie parasites, TB and HIV), but also pregnancy and lactation, and early growth and development, as well as chronic diseases and interactions between infectious and chronic diseases. He and his collaborators have previously conducted a number of nutrition intervention trials among schoolchildren and pregnant and lactating women, and patients with HIV and TB. Currently they are conducting or writing up nutrition intervention trials among infants (WinFood: Cambodia and Kenya), children with moderate (TreatFood: Burkina Faso) or severe acute malnutrition (ProbiSAM: Uganda), adults with HIV (ARTFood: Ethiopia, and NUSTART: Tanzania and Zambia, with Prof Suzanne Filteau, LSHTM, as Principal Investigator). They are also doing observational studies on severe acute malnutrition in children (SAM: Ethiopia; FeedSAM: Uganda) and in pig-models, and on fetal programming of chronic disease (iABC: Ethiopia).

The main papers have now been published from ARTFood in BMJ (http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3187), from WinFood in AJCN (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/101/4/742), from NUSTART in BMC Medicine (http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/17/comments), and Treatfood (https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002387).

CV

Degrees, etc:     

MD, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 1985

Physician, National Board of Health, Denmark, 1988

PhD, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 1994

Affiliated Professor, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark, 2005-6

Honorary Professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, 2007-

Employment:

Junior Doctor, Regional Health Team, Botswana, 1982-83

Medical Officer, various hospitals, 1985-90

Research Fellow, Danish Bilharziasis Laboratory, 1990-94

Assoc Res Professor, Human Nutrition, Royal Vet & Agricult University (RVAU), 1994-2002

Assoc Professor, Dept Epidemiology, Inst Public Health, Univ Copenhagen (UCPH), 2002-2006

Professor with special responsibilities, Dept Human Nutrition, UCPH, 2007-11

Professor of International Nutrition and Health, Dept Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, UCPH, 2012-  

Has been advisor to Danida and to UN organisations (UNAIDS, WHO and IAEA) in relation to meetings, consultancies, working groups, conferences and research programs within mother-to-child HIV transmission, nutrition-HIV, acute malnutrition and nutrition training.

Possible conflicts of interest

HF has received research grants from ARLA Food for Health Centre, and from Danish Dairy Research Council, and has research collaboration with GC Rieber Compact, Norway, and Nutriset, a French producer of LNS products.