Problems of the nutrition concentrate attention of high number of research organizations all across the world.  At the present time there is special scientific discipline focusing on nutrition problems. Basic goals studying by this discipline are: (i) investigation of food and its components (nutrients) influence on the various physiological processes and human population health; (ii) searching for more safety ways of nutrients digestion, assimilation and clearance. In connection with these goals another problem arises consisting in studies of nutrients pharmacological properties and they influence on the cell metabolism and organism functioning. However, such objectives are very complicated and sometimes couldn’t be resolved using standard methods of pharmacological and clinical studies.

In our Institute we develop complex systems approach for investigation of nutrition problems and diseases. The main novelty of our approach is a detail studying of nutrients influence on various physiological processes and metabolism of different cell types. We think that only such system approach can make a breakthrough in the investigation of nutrition problems, because main property of it is a ability to integrate and analyze experimental information collecting about different levels of system organization and characterizing them from all possible sides. The first our step in this field is a participation of Institute of Systems Biology SPb in the ETHERPATHS project, which is implemented in the 7^th framework EU program and focused on systems biology of lipid metabolism. In this section of our website you can find brief description of Institute of Systems Biology SPb activity in the ETHERPATHS project and other materials about studies of nutrition problems.