Improving Patient Outcomes: New Insights and Evidence on the Importance of Muscle and Targeted Nutrition

Professor Landi is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Geriatric at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart, in Rome. He is a specialist in geriatric medicine and gerontology and director of the rehabilitation geriatric unit of the “A. Gemelli” Hospital (Rome, Italy). He is also director of the teaching nursing homes of the Catholic University (L’Aquila, Italy).

He is a member of scientific committee of the Italian Geriatric Society. Francesco Landi is a member of the editorial board of several International geriatric journals and a peer reviewer for numerous International medical journals. He has acted as the principal investigator in many multicenter national and international trials. He is a member of national and international expert groups that work on guidelines in the field of nutrition and functionality in elderly subjects.

He has over 120 peer-reviewed original papers in International medical journals, many of which are in the area of frailty and functional status of older people. Professor Landi is particularly interested in the role of nutrition as part of the integrated care of older adults and participated in the development of the European Consensus on Sarcopenia Definition and Diagnosis.

Dr. Carla Prado is an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta and a Registered Dietitian. She holds a Campus Alberta Innovates Chair in Nutrition, Food and Health and is the Director of the Human Nutrition Research Unit, a state-of-the-art research and training facility. Dr. Prado was recently recognized as one of the most influential young Canadian leaders, receiving Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 Award.

Carla is an expert in body composition assessment. Her research program focuses on the identification and treatment of abnormalities in body composition (especially low muscle mass), with a special interest in cancer. The focus of her current research program is to develop targeted nutrition interventions for the prevention and treatment of low muscle mass in cancer. She shares her expertise as an Associate Editor of Clinical Nutrition and the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle.

Dr. Prado received her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Canada, and has completed further training at the Cross Cancer Institute (Canada), the National Institutes of Health (USA) and Newcastle University (UK).

Dr. Deutz is a Professor in Translational Research in Aging & Longevity of the Department of Health & Kinesiology, Texas A&M University. His research and interests are in clinical nutrition and metabolism research in animals and humans. He has published over 300 papers during his more than 30 years in this research field. His clinical interest is using nutritional supplements to treat malnutrition in older adults, and during acute and chronic disease states. He obtained his MD at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was then a Clinical Fellow in the Department of Neurosurgery and Internal Medicine at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam; he initiated his metabolic neurochemical research in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology, (both in the Netherlands), earning his Ph.D. with his thesis on hepatic encephalopathy.

He joined the Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism Group of the Department of Surgery of Maastricht University, NL, as Assistant Professor, and was appointed Associate Professor in 2000. He has focused his research on (inter-)organ protein and amino acid metabolism, using animals (mice, rats, pigs), healthy humans, and patients with various acute and chronic diseases, including (pre)diabetes, cancer, COPD, sepsis, liver and gut failure. He has been PI of many federal and industry-sponsored research projects.

He moved to UAMS, Little Rock in 2006 and became Professor of Geriatrics in the Center for Translational Research in Aging & Longevity of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. He has now moved to his present position at Texas A&M. He continuously supervises Ph.D. students, and is co-organizer of a number of international post-graduate courses. Since 1988, he is an active member of the European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ESPEN) and chaired the scientific committee from 2000 – 2005. Since 2006, he has served as Editor-in-Chief of the society’s journals: Clinical Nutrition, Clinical Nutrition ESPEN and Clinical Nutrition Supplements.