Dr. Leonard E. Gerber received hisB.S. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After receiving his Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences, he spent 2 years doing post-doctoral work at the University of Illinois, focusing on nutrition and wound healing. Since 1981, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. At URI, Dr. Gerber has served as Director of Research Compliance, Chair of the Institutional Review Board for Human Subject Use and Chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. He has served on the editorial board for several nutrition journals and currently is on the Advisory Board for Annual Editions: Nutrition, and reviews ad-hoc for several nutrition journals including Nutrition and Cancer: An International Journal. In addition to his approximately 20 publications in the field of nutrition, he has presented approximately 25 abstracts at scientific meetings. He has been a member of the American Society for Nutrition since 1979 and a member of the Vitamins and Minerals Interest Group and Diet and Cancer Interest Group of the ASN since 2007. His current research focuses on the impact and role of vitamin E and similar compounds upon the growth of salivary gland tumor cells in culture. In addition, Dr. Gerber also explores the possible relationships between spirituality and eating behaviors in various populations.

Dr. Leonard E. Gerber’s area of intrest is primarily the impact of antioxidants upon growth of cancer cell. I use cell culture as a model for evaluating this impactm, having used lung cancer cells, breast cancer cells and salivary gland tumor cells. I am particularly intrested in how nutrients such as beta-caotene, alpha-tocopherol and gamma-tocopherol affect cell growth through apotosis and other machanisms using the types of cells identified above.