From the beginning—Kemin's President discusses PI2

Lee Swanson

Lee Swanson, President of Swanson Health Products®

Dr. Chris Nelson, Ph.D., (left) with Kemin founders R.W. and Mary Nelson. R.W. is holding a bouquet of marigolds.

Dr. Christopher Nelson, pictured here with his parents, was born into the science of nutrition. His father, R.W. Nelson, founded Kemin in 1961 with a focus on developing innovative agricultural products. Today, Kemin Industries operates a variety of nutritional science companies around the world. Below, Dr. Nelson, now Kemin's Worldwide President, talks about the company and its newest success, Slendesta.

Swanson: Can you give our readers a bit of Kemin history? Your father founded the company, correct?

Nelson: Kemin was founded in 1961 by my father in Des Moines, Iowa. The company began by serving the animal feed market with ingredients such as antioxidants and mold inhibitors. In 1983, the company entered the human food ingredient market and in 1995 the nutritional supplement market with the introduction of our patented lutein. Kemin today employs over 900 people in 29 countries.

Slendesta Potato Protein Extract

Swanson: I understand you did your Ph.D. work with PI2—the active component in Slendesta—under the direction of Dr. Bud Ryan, who discovered the molecule. How did you become involved, and what was the focus of your research at that time?

Nelson: I was fortunate to study under Dr. Ryan at Washington State University from 1976 to 1980 to obtain my Ph.D.. When I entered graduate school, I knew that I wanted to do research on molecules that were involved in food. The research in Dr. Ryan's laboratory was particularly exciting in that he was involved in basic research concerning a molecule in potatoes and tomatoes. During my tenure there, I worked on the molecular biology of the PI2 molecule to understand how plant cells made the material. In my work, the first gene for PI2 was isolated and found to contain a special sequence of amino acids that allows the molecule to escape out of the plant cell and to be stored for later use.

Swanson: You had an experience with an earlier application for PI2 as an additive for cattle feed, which led to your investigating it as a weight-loss ingredient. What happened?

Nelson: In 1985, Kemin completed building a new research center in Des Moines. We invited Dr. Charlie Sniffen from Cornell University and Dr. Bud Ryan to participate in the opening ceremony. Dr. Sniffen is a noted dairy nutritionist. During the course of the day, Bud and Charlie had a chance to compare notes and a suggestion was made that PI2 could be valuable in helping dairy cows get better protein nutrition. As part of this, Kemin became involved in its first effort to manufacture PI2. Thus, the molecule became one of our targets of research for the next 20 years.

Swanson: Slendesta now holds four separate patents with more pending, so you've put quite a bit of work and creativity into the development of this product. Without sharing your secrets, can you tell our readers how many potatoes it takes to produce Slendesta, and can PI2 be extracted from just any potato?

Nelson: Slendesta's recommended dosage provides 15 mg of the active component, proteinase inhibitors (PI2). To obtain that amount of PI2, you would need to eat four medium white potatoes. From a production perspective, it takes about 40,000 pounds of potatoes to produce approximately three pounds of PI2.

Swanson: Dr. Nelson, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us. We're very excited about Slendesta, and we look forward to Kemin's next innovation.

Nelson: Thank you, Lee. We're very excited about Slendesta, too, and we're confident that it can help your customers achieve their weight-loss goals.

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