Module 2 - Assessing underlying factors and multidimensional impact of obesity

Dr. Prof. Amalia Gastaldelli, PhD, is a Research Director at the Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC) of the National Research Council (CNR) in Pisa, Italy, where she heads the Cardiometabolic Risk Group and the Multi-Omics Mass Spectrometry Laboratory. She is also Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Diabetes Division of the University of Texas Health, in San Antonio, TX, USA, and Affiliate Professor at the Institute of Life Sciences of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa. She graduated from the University of Padova and obtained a PhD in Preventive Medicine with a specialization in Human Pathophysiology from the University of Texas Medical Branch and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano.

Dr Gastaldelli's research focuses on the physiological mechanisms of metabolic diseases (mainly metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), obesity and type-2 diabetes) with particular focus on the alteration of metabolic fluxes and hormone secretion and action studied in vivo using novel techniques based on mass spectrometry and modeling analyses.

 

She is currently President of the European MASLD Study Group affiliated to the EASD, which she founded in 2012 and provides a joint forum for diabetologists and hepatologists to explore the diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment of MASLD and MASH, and since 2018, President of the European Group for the study of Insulin Resistance (EGIR) Study Group also affiliated to the EASD. From 2010 to 2020, she chaired the European Chapter of the American College of Nutrition (ECACN) and was a member of the Board of Directors of the American College of Nutrition (ACN). In 2016 and 2023, she was part of the EASL-EASD-EASO committees (delegate of EASD) to write the European clinical guidelines for the management of NAFLD/MASLD.

Dr. Cornier is a Professor of Medicine with Tenure, James A. Keating Endowed Chair in Diabetes, and Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Cornier has focused his career on cardiometabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and lipid disorders.

Prior to that Dr. Cornier received his undergraduate education at Vanderbilt University and medical doctorate at the Medical College of Georgia. He completed an internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Medical Center followed by a fellowship in Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes at the University of Colorado.

He was then on faculty at the University of Colorado with the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes until 2021. Since then, Dr Cornier continues to focus on cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes, lipid disorders and obesity at MUSC. He is an active clinical and translational investigator with a primary research interest in body weight regulation and in studying optimal interventions for weight management and metabolic health. He is also actively involved in clinical trials for investigational treatments for lipid disorders, diabetes and obesity. Dr. Cornier has been an active volunteer and leader of several important health-related associations and currently serves as the President of the Obesity Society.