While advancing nutrition research has provided evidence to describe the general contours of healthy eating patterns, it has also highlighted many critical new, unanswered questions on food and nutrition and the national challenges we face (10). Important nutrition research is currently being supported by >10 federal departments and agencies (11). Yet, as diet-related conditions and their societal burdens have climbed in recent decades, funding for such research has remained flat (12). In addition, no concrete action has emerged to successfully harmonize and leverage nutrition research across the government, despite consistent recommendations over at least 5 decades for a robust coordinating federal entity (13). A major, new federal effort to strengthen and coordinate nutrition research could rapidly generate the necessary evidence base to address multiple national challenges, providing major benefits and ROI.