A team of researchers at three St. Louis institutions — St. Louis Children's Hospital, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and Washington University School of Medicine — has announced a new partnership that will work to combat malnutrition in the developing world.

The Global Harvest Alliance will focus on creating low-cost nutritionally complete foods to treat and prevent all forms of under-nutrition. The foods will incorporate crops that are protein- and micronutrient-rich, disease- and pest-resistant, and can be disseminated through smallholder farmers.

Dr. Mark Manary, who has professional relationships with all three institutions, will head the alliance. Manary has developed a peanut butter-based ready-to-use therapeutic food for the treatment of severe malnutrition that has resulted in 90 percent recovery rates in research and operational projects and been endorsed by the World Health Organization. The Danforth Center, a leader in biofortification of food crops for more than a decade, has received funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct research for the international BioCassava Plus initiative, which aims to make cassava a more nutritionally rich and balanced staple plant crop.

Over the next five years, GHA researchers, affiliated scientists, and in-country nutritionists will field-test improved cassava varieties in Kenya and Nigeria with the goal of making them widely available in Africa within ten years. GHA also will explore improvements in other staple crops, including sorghum and a protein-rich legume such as cowpea or peanuts.

"Effective solutions to the crisis of childhood malnutrition must involve interventions spanning a diverse spectrum of disciplines including health care, agriculture, and home economics," Manary said. "People in the developing world derive most of their nutrients from plants, [and] plants constitute 90 percent of the diet of many Africans. Therefore, effective prevention strategies must include food crops that provide more complete nutrition."