Key Research Directions
        INS encourages free exploration of scientific research by individual scientists. Meanwhile, the Institute has formed several teams among the research groups by the allocation of resource and the combination of individual expertise, to carry out researches of national interest. These research teams are tackling key challenges in the following two research areas.

Nutrition-related diseases
        In the last twenty years, rapid changes in diets and lifestyles have occurred with industrialization, urbanization, and economic development in China. This is having a significant impact on the health and nutritional status of populations. The burden of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, metabolic disease, tumor, mental and neurodegenerative disorders, has rapidly increasing. INS forms three research teams targeting diabetes, tumor, mental and neurodegenerative disorders, respectively, through multidisciplinary biomedical researches at molecular, cellular, animal, and human population levels.

Food Safety
        With the rapid progress of the economics, China has paid more attention to food safety controls. But we are still facing various food safety problems derived from microorganism contamination, non-standardized food processing, storage and transportation, as well as the potential risk of foods developed by new techniques such as transgenic strategy. The food safety research team at INS focuses on the establishment of the techniques and systems for measuring the toxic or transgenic components in food, and the investigation of un-safety food related health problems and the mechanisms involved.