COLUMBUS, Ohio — The relationship between diet and health is highly complex and most anyone may agree there is a link between the foods eaten and one’s health, including the risk of developing certain types of cancer.

That explains the thrust of Ohio State University’s Center for Advanced Functional Foods Research and Entrepreneurship (CAFFRE).

CAFFRE is part of the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and involves faculty members from eight other colleges and schools across campus, including the College of Medicine and the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center (Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute).

The center’s current focus, “From Crops to the Clinic to the Consumer,” is an initiative made possible by the breadth of expertise available at OSU, said Steven Schwartz, CAFFRE director.

“The greatest advantage of CAFFRE is that it provides the opportunity to collaborate with researchers across campus,” said Schwartz, who is also a professor of food science and technology. “This is made possible by the breadth of expertise available at Ohio State.

“Ohio State has the distinct advantage of having a College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and a College of Medicine within the same campus boundaries. There are very few institutions across the country where researchers in medicine, nutrition and agriculture have that kind of proximity.”

According to Robin Ralston, director of the “Personalized Food and Nutritional Metabolic Profiling to Improve Health” project, it will focus on studying the fingerprints of a person’s metabolome, or the big picture of thousands of biological and chemical compounds related to human metabolism, and correlate that with the person’s risk of disease.

“The challenge is that we have these dietary guidelines for Americans, but they don’t work for everyone,” Ralston explained. “For some people, tomato products can reduce the risk of prostate cancer, but for others, they don’t. Different people will eat different foods, and because of their genetic makeup or other factors, the foods will be metabolized in different ways.

“Eventually, we might be able to use the metabolome information to determine a specific, personalized diet to reduce a person’s risk for developing disease.”

According to Schwartz, the “From Crops to the Clinic to the Consumer” initiative ties in well with other CAFFRE-supported projects. Recent projects include:

•Studying how nectar made from black raspberries could protect against certain types of cancers, such as oral cancer in smokers. Previous OSU research has revealed antioxidants in black raspberries can be powerful anti-cancer agents. Scientists associated with CAFFRE have developed functional foods, including nectar and confections, to use in clinical trials.

•Examination of carotenoids, such as beta-carotene and lycopene, from red tomatoes and specially developed orange-colored, or “tangerine” tomatoes. A new study funded by OSU’s cancer center is examining the absorption and distribution of lycopene and other carotenoids from red and tangerine tomatoes in prostate cancer patients.

•The role of the type of fat in avocadoes and how it helps the body absorb carotenoids.

“Just to be able to sit down in the same room and brainstorm, and then work together on seed projects with support from different colleges, has created strong teams of individuals that have been very competitive in obtaining external grants for their research interests,” Schwartz said. “Bringing people together from different disciplines is where innovations occur.”

Since 2006, the center’s 44 university scientists have garnered $22 million in support, including $2 million from 21 industry partners. For information on CAFFRE, visit http://fst.osu.edu/caffre