Overview
History
Dr. Kossor embarked on his journey into human nutrition as a Project Manager at Roche Vitamins, while developing drugs to treat food-producing animals. One drug in particular, an antibiotic, produced an interesting profile of toxicity in laboratory animals, where the signs of toxicity resembled symptoms of specific chronic inflammatory diseases in humans. The most interesting finding was increased cell growth in the esophagus of rats.
When exploring the literature to understand the mechanism for this finding, he found that this response in the esophagus could be produced experimentally by feeding the rats a zinc-deficient diet. Curiously, another property of the antibiotic under development was its ability to sequester zinc. Putting these two aspects together, Dr. Kossor questioned whether the antibiotic might be stimulating the cells in the esophagus to grow by starving them of zinc, the same stimulus that is provided by feeding a zinc-deficient diet. Several experiments proved that the antibiotic did, in fact, cause the toxicity by sequestering zinc.
Recognizing the importance of this finding, that some foreign compounds are capable of inducing specific diseases in humans by sequestering zinc (and micronutrients in general), Dr. Kossor asked the important question, “If specific human diseases are due to a deficiency of micronutrients, could these diseased be treated (and ultimately avoided) by providing specific foods that make sure the micronutrients never become deficient?”
This simple question has laid the foundation for the company known as NutrienTech LLC, whose mission is to bridge nutrition and technology. Currently, NutrienTech LLC scientists are engaged in proof-of-principle studies to identify specific diseases that are due, in part, to a deficiencies of a particular micronutrient, and which of these diseases might be cured and/or prevented by restoring a normal level of that micronutrient.
NutrienTech LLC
