The Obesity Research and Education Initiative (OREI) and the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center (FOEDRC) are proud to welcome new faculty member, Dr. Wei Bao, in the Department of Epidemiology in the College of Public Health.

Dr. Bao received a Ph.D. in Nutrition, an M.P.H. in Nutrition and Food Hygiene, and an M.D. in Preventive Medicine from Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China after receiving a B.S. from Wuhan University.  At Tongji Medical College, Dr. Bao received two awards for excellence in research: a Scholarship Award for Excellent Doctoral Student by the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Qiu Fazu Scholarship Award by the Qiu Fazu Foundation.  In 2011 Dr. Bao joined the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Intramural Population Health Research in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development where he was a highly successful investigator.   His research has focused on nutrition, diabetes, and obesity. He has a particular interest in identifying novel biomarkers and mechanisms for diabetes and obesity, with emphasis on gestational diabetes and women's health.  He has expertise in basic, clinical, and population health sciences.  He has experience including leadership in large interdisciplinary, collaborative cohort studies in the United States and internationally. Thus, Dr. Bao brings distinctive expertise in biomarkers research and cohort studies to the OREI, and the FOEDRC.  He also has been evaluating the role of genes and gene-diet interactions in type-2 diabetes and obesity.   At Iowa, he plans collaborative, interdisciplinary, longitudinal cohort studies relating to biomarkers for diabetes and obesity.