Dr. Stover graduated from Saint Joseph’s University with a B.S. degree in Chemistry and was awarded the Molloy Chemistry Award at graduation. He received a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the Medical College of Virginia and performed his postdoctoral studies in Nutritional Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley. Patrick Stover was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. In 2014, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also he received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities and the Osborne and Mendel Award for outstanding recent basic research accomplishments in nutrition from the American Society for Nutrition.
In 2012, he received a MERIT award from NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and in 1999, he received the E.R.L. Stokstad Award in Nutritional Biochemistry from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences. In 1996, Patrick Stover received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers, and he has been selected as an Outstanding Educator four times by Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholars. He also serves as Editor for the Annual Review of Nutrition.
How did you first get involved in nutritional biochemistry and research? What made you interested in the field of nutrition science?
I caught the research bug through an undergraduate research experience at Saint Joseph’s University. Dr. Nelson’s research group was funded by the Naval Air Development Center and focused on the design, synthesis and function of synthetic prostaglandin oligomers as anti-ischemic agents. Studying the role and biological function of small nutrients became my passion and drove my interest in metabolism and biochemistry. I then studied enzymology and folate metabolism for my doctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Verne Schirch at the Medical College of Virginia. This experience naturally led to an interest in nutrition and my migration to the University of California at Berkeley, when I studied folate nutrition and metabolism in the research group of Dr. Barry Shane.
When and why did you first join ASN? What value does ASN continue to provide you?
I joined ASN much later than I should have. I had regularly attended Experimental Biology and participated in ASN programming since graduate school but was most active in ASBMB. I joined ASN in1999 shortly after I was tenured as an associate professor, initially due to my interest in graduate education. I joined the Graduate Nutrition Education Committee and rose to rank of chair when we published what I believe is still a very important resource for all nutrition graduate programs: J Nutr.2002 Apr;132(4):779-84. ASN became my academic and professional home over the years—where I see old and meet new colleagues and collaborators, where my students present their research findings, where I developed leadership skills, and where I give time and treasure back to the nutrition community.
What aspects of ASN membership have you found most useful, professionally for you, your faculty and students? What other aspects of your membership do you find useful as your career has progressed?
All science is now a “social” science—collaboration is critical to address most important research questions. No one can succeed in a vacuum. Understanding how to forge meaningful and constructive partnerships through collaboration is essential to success, and ASN offers numerous opportunities to bring scientists together in an environment that promotes the exchange of ideas. Importantly, ASN also actively promotes mentoring opportunities for students and junior scientists, which has been invaluable for my students.
What aspects of your research do you foresee being most important for ASN members?
My bias is that nutrition, in all its dimensions, behaves as a complex dynamic system, and system approaches are needed to provide solutions to the problems we seek to solve. Hence, many of my current collaborators are those expert in systems biology and computer science.
Can you tell us more about your new position and what you hope to accomplish?
Perhaps the greatest challenge of our time is harmonizing agriculture, food systems, human health and environmental health. This is essential to address skyrocketing diet-related health care costs, environmental deterioration, and to ensure sustainability of our agriculture systems. Texas, as a national leader in agricultural production, coupled with its Healthy Texas A&M AgriLife Extension initiative, will be a model for aligning healthy and profitable agriculture with healthy people and healthy environments. As Vice Chancellor and Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University and System, I have the privilege of working with the talented faculty, academic staff, students, state-wide agencies and stakeholders to be a national model for excellence in meeting the one-health challenge through research, teaching, Extension and service.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell ASN members, especially students and postdocs?
For the students and trainees, do what you love and you’ll love what you do! Strive to become a world-class expert in your field and enjoy as many colleagues as you can. Share your ideas with others, and they will share openly with you. Give back to the community that has given so much to you…perhaps through the ASN Foundation!
The Stover research group investigates the chemical, biochemical, genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the relationships between one-carbon metabolism and human pathologies including neural tube defects, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Specific interests include the regulation of folate-mediated one-carbon metabolism and genome expression and stability, the molecular basis of the fetal origins hypothesis, development of mouse models to elucidate mechanisms of folate-related pathologies, and translational control of gene expression.
