Michael J. Gibney (1948–2024): a man of his time who had the time of his life

[...]in his autobiography, ‘A Life in Food: A Grain of Salt and Some Humble Pie’(1), he lays down some pointers, which suggest his subsequent career was at least in part determined by his undergraduate preference to study animal rather than plant biology, and a master’s project involving the analysis of the fatty acid composition of adipose tissue of growing lambs, indicators of interests that foreshadowed a significant part of his research in later years. Mike and Dr Pat Upton (Veterinary College of Ireland) began to compute nutrient intakes for the Irish population using household budget surveys and retail price data. [...]he also began to work with human volunteers investigating the effects of fibre on blood pressure, post-prandial lipids and measurement of human antibodies to dietary proteins. Mike’s move from Trinity College to University College Dublin in 2006, although controversial at the time, was part of his vision to advance the discipline of human nutrition – first, to exploit the development of metabolomics and data analytics to advance understanding of the effects of diet on human metabolism(5) and, second, to bring nutrition into an academic environment where integration between relevant centres of excellence could allow solutions to big global challenges, such as climate