William E.M. Lands

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William E.M. Lands (born July 22, 1930) is an American nutritional biochemist who is the world's foremost authority on essential fatty acids. Lands graduated from University of Michigan in 1951 and served on the faculty there from 1955 to 1980. He then moved to University of Illinois (1980-1990) and subsequently the National Institutes of Health (1990-2002), where he served as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Lands is credited for discovering the beneficial effects of balancing the effects of excess omega-6 fatty acids with dietary omega-3 fatty acids. The effect of essential fatty acids on formation of hormones is documented in his book, "Fish, Omega-3 and Human Health." University of Michigan's Department of Biological Chemistry endowed a Lectureship in honor of William E.M. Lands.

Lands Lecturers have included:

• 2005 Hee Young Kim from NIAAA on essentiality of docosahexaenoic acid in the brain
• 2006 James C. Fleet from Purdue University on molecular actions of Vitamin D
• 2007 Charles Brenner from Dartmouth Medical School on discovery of new regulated steps in NAD metabolism

More recently, Lands has argued that the mercury content of fish has is offset by selenium content, which detoxifies mercury.