A celebration of the contribution to nutrition science made by Professor Mike Gibney

Professor Mike Gibney, who died on 23 February 2024, is known around the world as an exceptional scientist not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and speak out in support of evidence-based nutrition science, a superb communicator skilled at demystifying the mechanics of human nutrition and issues right across the food and health sector, and a leader keen on collaboration and developing both the human nutrition discipline and the careers of others. For those who worked with him, he was a valued mentor and, to paraphrase the eulogies at his funeral, he possessed a tremendous generosity of spirit and recognised the importance of celebrating success. Mike was awarded first-class honours in agricultural chemistry at University College Dublin and then moved to Australia to undertake a PhD at the University of Sydney Veterinary School. He returned to Dublin in 1974 to undertake a postdoctoral fellowship at the Agricultural Institute. But by then, he had developed an interest in human nutrition and started to use existing surveys to estimate nutrient intakes among Irish adults. In 1977, he moved to Southampton University's School of Medicine, as a lecturer, with a remit to bring human nutrition research to a group working at the interface of nutrition and immunology. It was at this time that Mike became actively involved in the work of the Nutrition Society, as Assistant Programme Secretary. In 1984, Mike returned to Dublin to take up a post at Trinity College's Department of Clinical Medicine. Here he worked collaboratively at the interface between nutrition with cardiology, gerontology, paediatrics, haematology and gastroenterology. In a Nutrition Society book produced in 2021 (Gibney, 2021) and an autobiography published in the Annual Reviews of Nutrition in 2018 (Gibney, 2018), Mike recounts the changes in nutrition science that took place during the 1980s in Ireland as opportunities to study nutrition increased. In 1987 Professor Gerry McKenna of the University of Ulster convened a meeting of academics from all three nutrition-active universities on the island of Ireland—Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork and the University of Ulster. The outcome was an initiative to promote collaboration at all levels, known as the Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance, which has been hugely successful in securing competitively funded collaborative research projects and delivering innovative teaching programmes. In his autobiography, Mike describes the Alliance as ‘one of my proudest legacies and all the sweeter in that it's a shared legacy’. Another example of Mike's leadership and flair for collaboration resulted in the setting up of the Nutrition Society's Irish Section in 1988, and in 1995 Mike was elected the 19th President of the Nutrition Society. By then our paths had already crossed as our terms of office as Council Members of the Society overlapped. At his first Council meeting as chair, Mike set out his plans to establish a 5-year plan for the Society in collaboration with a group representing the wide interests of members. Three priorities were identified: to have a greater international presence in Europe, to foster public health nutrition and to establish a register of nutritionists. Links with three Europe-based Nutrition Societies soon followed and, in 1996, Dr Barrie Margetts and I were asked to begin a review of the competencies needed to create a Register of Public Health Nutritionists, with the first certificates being awarded in 1998. Over time, the scope of registration was expanded to include nutritionists other than those focussing on public health, and we also moved our attention to defining criteria for the accreditation of undergraduate training in nutrition. Subsequently, these functions have become the responsibility of the Association for Nutrition, established as the independent regulator of registered nutritionists in the United Kingdom. Another of Mike's major contributions was establishing the suite of Nutrition Society Textbooks, many of which have been updated over the intervening period. Mike has described this as ‘one of the craziest projects’ he ever undertook. After 23 years at Trinity College Dublin, Mike moved his entire team of 23 and the associated funding, much of which was for metabolomics research, to University College Dublin (UCD), where he became Professor of Food and Health and the founding Director of the UCD Institute of Food and Health. This position is now held by his daughter Eileen. As well as being an internationally respected and visionary leader in advancing the science of nutrition, Mike was a tour de force when it came to nutrition science communication, writing newspaper articles and popular science books for the general public, as well as a plethora of papers for academic audiences. Since his retirement, his interest in challenging misinformation and conventional wisdom continued and he has been a regular commentator on the media storm that has built around the concept of so-called ultra-processed foods, highlighting the limitations in the evidence supporting an inverse causal link between the processing of food and health. A book on the topic for a general audience was completed shortly before his death, so his legacy will continue. Professor Christine Williams, who collaborated with Mike on a number of research projects involving dietary lipids and postprandial metabolism, said ‘Mike was a great collaborator and a potential Nobel prize winner in the field of “Friendship,” the award of which could be supported via innumerable stories of his generosity of spirit, his warmth and interest in the lives of all who came into his arena. Possibly the aspect of his career of which he might be most proud was his capacity to challenge the status quo in nutrition, which he did with energy and goodwill. He was a big man with a big heart, who knew the importance of questioning current dogma’. A celebration of Mike Gibney's contribution to nutrition would not be complete without mention of Jo, his wife since 1971. Over many years Jo was one of the friendly faces manning the registration desk at Nutrition Society meetings and providing support with Mike's many research collaborations. I had the good fortune to work alongside the Gibneys as one of the Work Package leaders, responsible for science dissemination activities, for an EU-funded Framework project known as Lipgene. Over the 5-year project, the project team met in different countries across Europe and experienced first-hand the science leadership, ‘generosity of spirit’ and sense of fun and celebration that featured in the eulogies at Mike's funeral. A sense of caring was ever present to the extent that Jo seemed to always carry a small fruit cake in her luggage just in case one of the wider project team happened to have a birthday while we were away from home. In his account in the Nutrition Society book mentioned earlier, Mike lists some challenges for nutritionists following in his footsteps. These challenges include: ‘the dreaded phenomenon’ of energy under-reporting and the need for papers and oral communications submitted for publication to meet standards on data to allow the reader to evaluate energy under-reporting. He also recommends setting similar standards for publications seeking to show an epidemiological link between the consumption of a food and a health outcome, such as outlining how the study meets the Bradford-Hill criteria for causation, a detailed explanation of why particular confounding factors were used or not used, and how the intake of the target food is correlated with other non-target foods in the context of confounding. He also refers to the importance of fostering stronger links with sensory and behavioural sciences to help unravel the complexity of food choice, and development of an international strategy to integrate hard endpoints of both nutritional status and anthropometry with ongoing twin studies. Plenty to get our teeth into!

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