Dr Sean Strain is the voice of our conscience, advising committees concerned with the consumption of stimulant drinks and heading an advisory panel of the Food Safety Promotion Board. Anne Byrne reports

Red Bull may give you wings but it should also carry a clear warning that it is not to be consumed with alcohol. That's just one of the recommendations of the Government-established Stimulant Drinks Committee, which would like to clip the wings of young drinkers who enjoy their vodka with a little extra kick from a caffeine and chemical cocktail. The committee also advises that stimulant drinks should not be consumed as thirst quenchers by people taking part in sport or exercise.

Professor Sean Strain, who chaired the committee, also heads the scientific advisory board of the Food Safety Promotion Board, which has been urging us to store food safely, to cook it thoroughly and to consume it before its "use by" date.

He led one of the three teams involved in the recent North/South Ireland Food Consumption Survey, which found that 20 per cent of Irish men and 16 per cent of women were obese. He's the voice of our conscience telling us what we already know: eat fewer cream cakes, don't smoke, exercise more often, don't indulge excessively in alcohol and eat lots of broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts.

So his work is often cited by the media when it comes to healthy-lifestyle stories.

However, Strain's first foray into the world of scientific research was decidedly less glamorous." I did my PhD in nutritional biochemistry - growing micro-algae on pig slurry," he says with a wide grin. "That was back in the 1970s when it was thought that protein was in short supply and we could recycle pig slurry usefully, so phosphates didn't end up in Lough Neagh." The algal bloom would feed the world - a hopeful project that came to nought.

A farmer's son, Strain went to Queen's University Belfast in 1968 to study agricultural science. He left, eight years later, with a PhD.

He walked on the civil rights marches, but says for him the college experience was mainly about the transition from country to a city.

Afterwards, he decided to look further afield and was offered two jobs: one in Malawi and one in New South Wales. "My wife a was a few months pregnant, so we thought Malawi might be difficult. We left for Australia on July 26th and Daire was born on September 15th.

"I taught in what was essentially a college of further education that later merged with a university. I loved Australia but my wife was homesick. She missed her job and her family, and never really settled." Their second son was born in Australia in 1980, and named Conall.

Strain returned to Ireland in 1981 to take up a job in what was then the Ulster Polytechnic. Ulster University was created in 1984. And, with the advent of UU, he re-invented his research career after an eight-year hiatus.

"My first grant was a small one from a local charitable trust, the Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association. I looked at the role of copper in mechanisms associated with coronary heart disease. It was an animal-based study. Severe copper deficiency is associated with more mechanisms producing more abnormalities that can be associated with heart disease than any other nutritional deficiency.

"But severe copper deficiency is virtually unknown. The intriguing question was whether mild copper deficiency could cause similar problems." Copper in the human diet comes from offal, shellfish, whole grains, most fruit and veg, pulses and chocolate.

This initial work was further extended with large grants from the Minister for Agriculture Fisheries and Food/Food Standards Authority grants.

Strain says his interest has now moved towards nutrients involved in homocysteine metabolism. The UU team, under the direction of Professor Helene McNulty, is working in association with Professor John Scott of TCD. "We are looking at folic acid, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, riboflavine and choline," he says.

The all-Ireland food consumption survey, which included the intake of vitamins and minerals, was carried out by the Irish Universities Nutrition Alliance, a formal alliance of the nutrition departments of UCC, TCD and UU.

Strain says the alliance was established in 1993, "long before cross-border collaborations became sexy".

The three colleges have recently developed an MSc in European food regulatory affairs that will be delivered online. The first students will begin the course in September and will study from lectures prepared by all three universities, the EU, and industry. The qualification is awarded by UU.

Strain has now taught in the third-level sector for a quarter of a century.

He says UU is far ahead when it comes to online teaching. He is professor of human nutrition in UU's school of biomedical sciences. The school scores very highly on teaching assessments and recently achieved a five-star research rating in the UK Research Assessment Exercise.

This is the highest rating possible and means the department carries out world-class research. Strain's own list of publications exceeds 200 while his list of professional associations is equally impressive.

UU's new Centre for Biomolecular Sciences will open in August this year. Strain will be co-director of this £14.4 million sterling project.

With all of this impressive investment and research, Strain says he will not be popular when he admits that very few dietary recommendations are based on strong scientific evidence.

"The new excitement is about the interaction between genes and nutrition," he says. " Just because you have a certain genome doesn't mean you fall victim to a particular chronic disease such as heart disease or osteoporosis. Your susceptibility may be increased. Nutrient intake in early or foetal life could determine which genes are expressed. A lot of people think because you have these genes, that's it, there's nothing you can do.

"We should, rather, think of our genes as puppets, with nutrients pulling the strings," according to Dr Strain