Nutraceutical ingredient supplier PLT Health Solutions has appointed Dawna Salter-Farfan, PhD, RD, as senior manager of clinical research. Prior to joining PLT, Salter-Farfan spent nearly 14 years with Amway’s Nutrilite division, most recently as a principal scientist in nutrition investigation and clinical research. There, she provided 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 program, 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.
 
Devin Stagg, chief operating officer for PLT, said that Salter-Farfan’s appointment represents the company’s increasing role as an innovation partner for its customers and manufacturers, and the importance of using science to build compelling consumers messaging.
 
“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,” Stagg said. “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.”
 
In her present role, Salter-Farfan will be an active participant in the new product development process, including technical leadership for collaborative product discovery and development and oversight of the design and execution of clinical trials.
 
Earlier in Salter-Farfan’s career, she served as an expert speaker around various nutrition and science topics. She also previously served as a clinical dietitian at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute near Spokane, WA, where she was a lead clinical dietitian for head injury and stroke units. There, she participated in a multi-disciplinarian team approach to patient rehabilitation, recovery, and discharge planning.
 
“Today at PLT, we have the most robust clinical science program in the history of our company,” said Jennifer Murphy, director of innovation and clinical development at PLT. “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.” 
 
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.