Robert E. Smith is an adjunct assistant professor at Park University (robert.smith05@park.edu). He received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1979 from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. From 1979-1980, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Pier Luigi Luisi at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland.

Since then, he has been a research chemist working for several employers. He was the principal investigator on several projects. As part of the human genome project, his team made hundreds of plastic models of proteins and other biopolymers using a technology that was called rapid prototyping. Now, it’s called 3D printing. In another project, his team helped the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study the toxicity of environmental chemicals. From 2001-2023, he was a science advisor in the Kansas City lab of the Food and Drug Administration. He developed analytical methods and standards for quality assurance and identification of foods and pharmaceuticals. This was part of the total diet study, in which about 300 food items were analyzed for almost 300 toxins. This includes pesticides such as glyphosate, as well as herbicides, heavy metals, and environmental toxins. Since December 2024, he has been a project manager and technical writer for Biswas IT Solutions (BITS).

He is interested in systems thinking and Total Quality Management (TQM) in medicine and new drug development. This includes P4 medicine, which is predictive, preventive, personalize,d and participatory. It also means that one’s diet and lifestyle are essential factors in maintaining good health. A vegetarian diet helps prevent many chronic, degenerative diseases. Moreover, the most significant thing that any individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint and fight Global Climate Change is to either eat less meat or (better yet) consume an exclusively plant-based diet.

He is also an abolitionist who is very passionate about the rights of women and children. Some of his articles in this journal describe the ongoing struggle against slavery, racism, sexism, and the abuse of women and children. He has also written about the benefits of a healthy diet. This supports a healthy gut microbiome and enteric nervous system (the nervous system in our gastrointestinal tract), which has been called our second brain. He has also written many articles about COVID-19, vaccines, and the human immune system.

He has written five books, ten chapters in four other books, three editorials as a guest editor for special issues of journals, and 126 journal articles. He has collaborated with students, scientists, and professors at the Universities of Missouri and Texas, U.S.A., the University of Munich, Germany, Brazilian Universities in Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, São Paulo, Pernambuco, Tapetinga, Santa Cruz, Botucatu and Belém, and Embrapa (the Brazilian equivalent to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture). His research articles describe the analysis of a variety of foods and dietary supplements for many toxic substances1-3.

There is only one race – the human race. We are all more closely related than most people think. Some basic assumptions that we learned as children are wrong. We do not inherit exactly half of our genes from each parent, and we cannot trace our ancestry back thousands of years. The genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past. Nobody has ancestors from just one ethnic background or region of the world. Race is a social construct with no scientific basis. Moreover, not all of our DNA came from human ancestors. About 99% of our protein-coding genes are in the bacteria in our gut and other parts of our body. When viruses and bacteria infected our distant ancestors, some of their DNA recombined with the human chromosomes. This is called the horizontal transfer of DNA. Much of our DNA contains remnants of ancient viruses.

Often, I’m asked why I don’t have my genealogy determined. Don’t you want to know who you are? My answer is, “I already know that I’m almost 100% American”. The bacteria in my gut come from the food that I eat, which almost exclusively comes from somewhere in the Americas. Finally, genetic information is constantly changing. There is a layer of control that lies above genetics. It’s called epigenetics. That is, our DNA can be modified before it’s transcribed into mRNA and translated into proteins. The proteins can be modified as well when the internal or external environment requires it. The transcription and expression of genes must be turned on and off at the right times to maintain the many rhythms of life. I am not the same person in the morning that I am at night. I will not be exactly the same person tomorrow as I am today.

Notes

¹ Carvalho, C. N. C. C., Monteiro, O. S., da Rocha, C. Q., Smith, R. E. and Maia, J. G. (2022). Phytochemical analysis of the pulp fruit extracts from Annona crassiflora Mart. and evaluation of their antioxidant and cytotoxic activities. Foods. Volume 11, article 2079.
² Smith, R. E., Tran, K., Smith, C. C., McDonald, M., Shejwalkar, P. and Hara, K. (2016). The role of the Nrf2/ARE antioxidant system in preventing cardiovascular diseases. Diseases. Volume 4, article 34, doi:10.3390.
³ Sack, C., Vonderbrink, J., Smoker, M. and Smith, R. E. (2015). Determination of acid herbicides using modified QuEChERS with fast switching ESI+/ESI- LC-MS/MS. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Volume 63, pages 9657-9665.