About

The IBCHN is an independent Research Institute originating from the seminal discoveries in the 1970s (1) on the specific omega 6 and omega 3, essential fatty acid (EFA) requirement for the brain. This work was funded by the MRC. The research group that was to become the IBCHN was led by Professor Michael Crawford who was head of the Department of Biochemistry in the Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine, a research section of the Zoological Society of London.

Owing to the need to apply the discovery to focus on the high specialisation of human neurodevelopment, the IBCHN was formalized in 1989 by a council that included Lord Rea, Sir Michael Marmot, , Margaret Wynn, Ian-Dawson-Shepherd, Major Christopher Robinson, Professors Kate Costeloe, Gerry Shaper and Cedric Hassall with Dr Robert Lister who is the present chairman.

The application to human medicine was funded by the Wolfson Foundation. The work was then located in Hackney with its own funding. The objective was to better understand the relevance of nutrition to low birthweight because of the high, associated risk of neurodevelopmental disorder. It became a research arm and was funded by the newly formed Mother and Child Foundation with other support from national and international research funds.

The IBCHN was worked from the Hayward Research Building at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, Hackney. It trained post-graduates from the University of North London and in 1996 it was invited to join the University by Professor Ian Haines who was Dean of the Faculty Science and who following the merger with the Guildhall, became Director of Graduate School, London Metropolitan University.

The original discovery and the following papers demonstrating behavioural and neural consequences of deficits of the EFA, won several international prizes and firmly established the international reputation. Its work has provided a better understanding of the specific importance of arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acids in neurodevelopment and function. It collaborates with several national and international research groups and is currently being consulted by WHO and FAO on EFA nutrition and the brain.

The current relevance was summarised in an invited key note presentation at the recent Yokohama congress in Japan (2).

It is worth noting that in 1972, when Professor Crawford saw the specific dependence of brain development on arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acids, he published the prediction that brain disorders would follow the rise in death from cardio-vascular disease unless the food system was corrected to serve the human priority of the brain (3). It was not corrected and the prediction has become fact!

Today, brain disorders have overtaken all other burdens of ill health at a cost of €386 Billion to the 25 EU in 2004 and £77 Billion to the UK in 2007. This cost to the UK was stated by Dr. Jo Nurse of the DoH to be higher than cancer and heart disease combined. The work of the IBCHN is central to the greatest health threat of our time.

(1) Crawford MA and Sinclair AJ (1972) Nutritional influences in the evolution of the mammalian brain. In Lipids, malnutrition and the developing brain: 267‑292. Elliot, K. and Knight, J. (Eds.). A Ciba Foundation Symposium (19‑21 October, 1971). Amsterdam, Elsevier