History of ACNC

Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center (ACNC) is one of six centers in the National Human Nutrition Research Centers (HNRCs) Program funded through the Agriculture Research Service (ARS) within the USDA. The centers are: 

•  Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center (HNRC), established in 1941 in Beltsville, Maryland;
• Grand Forks HNRC, established in 1977 in Grand Forks, North Dakota; 
• Children's Nutrition Research Center, established 1979 in Houston, Texas.
• Jean Mayer HNRC on Aging, established in 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts;
• The Western HNRC, established in 1980 in Davis, California; and
• Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center established in 1995 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

There has been an intramural human nutrition research program within the USDA for more than 60 years. Several special Congressional acts have guided the creation of what is the current program, including the acts of 1977 and 1985 that established the USDA as the lead agency of the government for human nutrition research and further legislated the establishment of a separate and distinct mission within the USDA for research into food and nutrition. The federal legislation states specifically that the emphasis should be on nutritional needs of normal, healthy individuals and not biomedical aspects of human nutrition concerned with diagnosis or treatment of disease. While these latter two points are generally considered to be within the mission of the National Institutes of Health, the prevention of disease through diet and nutrition is within the mission of the USDA HNRC program.

ACNC is the newest of the Human Nutrition Research Centers (HNRCs) and only the second to focus on pediatric nutrition. It is unique in terms of its research areas. Unlike the buildings at the other HNRCs which were constructed with federal appropriations through the USDA, the research facilities at the ACNC are being constructed with private contributions raised through the Arkansas Children’s Hospital

Program funding for the ACNC started with a $1M congressional appropriation in 1995. When fully developed, research will focus on five areas:

• Brain Development and Function;

• Dietary Factors (Non-Traditional Nutrients or Functional Foods);

• Bone Development and Remodeling;

• Childhood Obesity;

• Enhancement of Immune Function.

Currently, the Center is funded at approximately one-fourth of the anticipated total level, with the first two areas (Brain Development and Function, and Dietary Factors) being actively funded.

The ACNC is an intramural research program of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) housed on the campus of one of the ten largest children’s hospitals in the United States, the Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) in Little Rock. The ACH is located 0.8 miles from the state’s only medical school, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). The ACH is staffed with physicians from UAMS and serves as the UAMS teaching hospital for pediatrics. A private research institute (the ACH Research Institute, ACHRI) provides a research environment for UAMS faculty members housed on the ACH campus. The ACHRI has about 100,000 sq. ft. of research space and all the grants and contracts funding this research are awarded to the ACHRI.