Nutritional Sciences doctoral student receives American Heart Association fellowship award

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Media Contact: Katie Lacey | Communications Specialist | 405-744-9347 | katie.l.lacey@okstate.edu

Nutritional Sciences doctoral student Bryant Keirns was recently awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association (AHA). Keirns’ research focuses on studying heart and gut health and their links to heart disease. 

The prestigious AHA fellowship comes with more than $30,000 in support that will allow Keirns to take his research a step further. 

“I think the research we will do is important and interesting, and I would like to continue doing research on the intersection between heart health and gut health,” Keirns said. “This project is a good step towards achieving my career goal of teaching and doing clinical research at a university.”

Keirns said his interest in nutrition started as an undergraduate student  when he was running cross country and track.  

“Fueling is obviously an important part of endurance sports,” Keirns said. “Since then I have taken more interest in how nutrition can affect health in general and impact risk for developing chronic conditions like heart disease.”

Heart disease stays at the forefront of Keirns’ research as he studies people who are not necessarily defined as at-risk for heart disease. 

“Our lab’s research aims to identify those who are at-risk for heart disease, but might not be deemed at-risk based on common clinical tests,” Keirns said. “Those who have metabolically healthy obesity and normal-weight obesity do not have most of the risk factors we associate with heart disease — high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc. — but nonetheless are still more likely to develop heart disease.”

Keirns is grateful to the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Dr. Sam Emerson for supporting him through the application process for the AHA award. 

“The faculty in our department have been nothing but supportive,” Keirns said. “It is safe to say that without the support of OSU, faculty and students, it would not have been possible for me to put together a competitive fellowship application.”

Story By: Sierra Walter | sierra.walter@okstate.edu