Heather Blewett

Biography

Dr. Blewett’s exposure to research started at a young age. Her mother worked as a lab technician in the Department of Anatomy when she was a child. As a consequence, her first exposure to laboratory science was when her mother would bring her in on the weekends to help feed and weigh the rats in her experiments. This first exposure to research inspired Dr. Blewett to follow a career path with the ultimate goal of conducting experiments aimed at improving the health of the population through food. Dr. Blewett’s research expertise is centered on nutritional immunology. Her PhD explored effects of zinc deficiency on T-cell maturation and function. She went on to work with the leading nutritional immunologist in Canada: Dr. Field. In her lab Dr. Blewett expanded both her nutritional and immunological training by studying the importance of amino acids and fatty acids for intestinal and immune defense against E. coli using a novel piglet model. She also discovered that the trans fat vaccenic acid favorably alters the pro-inflammatory tendency of mesenteric lymphocytes in obesity. As a Post Doctoral Fellow in Peter Zahradka’s lab she had the opportunity to gain valuable experience in clinical trials and the burgeoning field of nutrigeomics.

Research Interest

Dr. Blewett is an AAFC scientist working at the Canadian Centre for Agri-food Research in Health and Medicine (CCARM). She uses her expertise in human nutrition to perform the clinical trials that are needed to substantiate food health claims for Canadian crops including LDL cholesterol lowering, reduction in postprandial glucose response and increased satiety. Her background in immunology also allows her to focus on the effect of Canadian food products on immune function in the context of chronic diseases (ie. cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity), infectious disease and allergy.