Dr. Shetty's work as a plant biologist, molecular biologist and microbiologist has opened new opportunities for the use and application of plant derived foods to improve human health.

He was born in Jayapura, near Bangalore in the Indian State of Karnataka and took his first degreein Agricultural Science. He then moved to the University of Idaho, USA in 1984 to undertake and MS and then a PhD in the field of Microbiology. He was awarded the Japanese government Science and Technology post-doctoral fellowship in 1990 to pursue research in the areas of Plant Cell and Molecular Biology at the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources in Tsukuba Science City. In 1992, Dr. Shetty continued post-doctoral studies in plant biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He moved to the Massachusetts in Amherst where he has identified regulatory elements of plant secondary metabolism whose manipulation canallow food plants to be high-yielding of health ful phytochemicals and, also, to grow in contaminated environments to phytoremediate them.

All-in-all, he has developed ecologically sensitive approach3es to food plant production while at the same time improving human health.

A deep understanding of Asian cultures and a well-developed Aisan value system inform his research. He employs a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to his work, reflected in an outstanding course on World Food Habits which he teaches at the University of Massachusetts, along with basic and applied food sciencesl.

The amalgam of Dr. Shetty's Indian ancestry and his western science are generating a new respect for Asian food cultures and their potential for human health universally.

The Asia Pacific Clinical Nutrition Society is proud to beston its 1999 Award on Kalidas Shetty.