PLT Health Solutions, Inc. has appointed Dawna Salter-Farfan, PhD, RD as its Senior Manager of Clinical Research. Prior to joining PLT, Dr Salter-Farfan spent nearly fourteen years with Amway’s Nutrilite Division, most recently as a Principal Scientist in Nutrition Investigation and Clinical Research, providing expert scientific and technical guidance for product formulation, labeling and advertising claims, as well as marketing-driven promotions.
At PLT, she will support the company’s expanding clinical development programme, including trial design, reporting and publication. She will join the company’s Innovation team helping drive the discovery and development of new science-based ingredient solutions.
According to Devin Stagg, Chief Operating Officer for PLT Health Solutions, the addition of Dr Salter-Farfan and expanding the company’s science talent bench is being done in recognition of the increasing role PLT plays as an innovation partner for key customers and manufacturers and the importance of strong science to building compelling consumer messaging for next-generation health and wellness products.
“Strong science backing best-in-class ingredients is a core belief of PLT Health Solutions and gold standard clinical science that makes the case and builds trust with consumers is at the foundation of everything we do. We have built this strength by assembling some of the most talented professionals in our industry, with extensive backgrounds in designing and developing clinical research that addresses people’s most pressing health and wellness issues,” he said.
“Dawna Salter-Farfan’s experience as a registered dietitian, clinical researcher and product innovator will help us support our customers in their own innovation and consumer product development efforts,” he added.
In her role as Principal Scientist in Nutrition Investigation and Clinical Research at Nutrilite, Dr Salter-Farfan provided expert scientific and technical guidance for product formulation, labeling and messaging. She was an active participant in the company’s new product development process, including technical leadership for collaborative product discovery and development, as well as overseeing the design and execution of clinical trials.
She also served as an expert speaker around the world on nutrition and science topics, providing scientific feedback to global regulatory agencies. Earlier in her career, Dr Salter-Farfan served as Clinical Dietitian at St Luke's Rehabilitation Institute near Spokane (WA, US) where she was lead clinical dietitian for Head Injury and Stroke units and participated a in collaborative multidisciplinarian team approach to patient rehabilitation, recovery and discharge planning.
According to Jennifer Murphy, Director of Innovation & Clinical Development, the addition of Ms Salter-Farfan to PLT’s science team will expand and accelerate the company’s clinical science programme.
“Today at PLT, we have the most robust clinical science programme in the history of our company. Dawna is a passionate and talented research scientist who comes to us with more than 20 years of preclinical and clinical research experience.
She has a rigorous academic background, and she also has the experience of working with a major consumer products company. That combination of research and industry-specific expertise is an exceptional addition to PLT’s scientific acumen.
Understanding the unique scientific, clinical and innovation challenges that our customers face allows us to work collaboratively with them to deliver the support needed to meet their product development and business goals,” she said.
Dr Salter-Farfan received her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine where she was the principal investigator for three separately funded grants to study neural processing of food reward in adolescent females using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology.
She was awarded her BS, RD Nutrition and Food Science, Dietetics from Utah State University. She is a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine, Sports and Human Nutrition and the American Society for Nutrition, Society for Neuroscience.