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Dr. Kimber Stanhope is an Associate Project Scientist in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of California, Davis. Since 2004, while implementing and supervising the conduct of 5 clinical research studies, Dr. Stanhope has become exceptionally experienced and competent at all aspects of human subject research. Most notable was her work on Havel's National Institute of Health (NIH) award RO1 HL075675 (July 2004 to June 2009), a complex and challenging project investigating the effects of fructose- and glucose-sweetened beverages on adiposity, lipid metabolism, insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese human subjects. The first publication resulting from this study was recently published in Journal of Clinical Investigation (Impact Factor = 16.9). This investigation of the effects of fructose- and glucose-sweetened beverages on adiposity, lipid metabolism, insulin sensitivity has definitively demonstrated significant biologic and metabolic differences between the two sugars.

Dr. Stanhope has committed herself to the further investigation of these novel and important findings. She first-authored four reviews on dietary fructose which reflects her growth as a scientist, creativity, and ever-increasing interest and expertise in lipid metabolism. She has written a 5-year NIH RO1 grant proposing more studies in human subjects that will specifically compare the effects of dietary fructose and high fructose corn syrup at low, medium and high doses. This grant was funded in 3-2008, and under Dr. Stanhope's supervision studies began in October 2008. She has also written and submitted an NIH grant proposing to investigate the atherogenic responses of in vitro endothelial cells exposed to plasma from subjects who consumed fructose and an NIH R01 grant proposing studies in nonhuman primates to determine the mechanisms underlying the differences observed in the metabolic effects of glucose and fructose. During her 13-year tenure in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Havel, Dr. Stanhope has also acquired extensive experience directing research in non-human primates at the California National Primate Research Center (18 projects), rats, and in isolated adipocytes. Dr. Stanhope earned her master degree in nutrition science and her doctoral degree in nutritional biology at UC-Davis.