From a single room at Coonoor to Hyderabad: the National Institute of Nutrition

Background

National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) was founded by Sir Robert McCarrison in the year 1918 as a Beri-Beri Enquiry Unit in a single room laboratory at the Pasteur Institute, Coonoor, Tamil Nadu. Within a short span of seven years, this unit blossomed into a "Deficiency Disease Enquiry" and later in 1928, emerged as full-fledged "Nutrition Research Laboratories" (NRL) with Dr. McCarrison as its first Director. It was shifted to Hyderabad in 1958. At the time of its golden jubilee in 1969, it was renamed as National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). The Institute is located on the salubrious campus of Osmania University. Its stated vision is to eliminate all forms of malnutrition in India through healthy, sustainable and environment friendly diets and lifestyles. Among its mandates are to generate high quality evidence for tackling important public health nutrition problems among the population groups, and to conduct operational research for planning and implementation of national nutrition programs in the country.