Dr. Piero Portincasa is a Professor of Internal Medicine at the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology (DIMO) at the University Medical School of Bari, Italy.
From 1985 to 1987, he studied with Prof. R.H. Dowling at Guy’s Hospital, London, UK as a Research Fellow. In 1991 he joined the University of Bari Medical School as an Assistant Professor. In 1993-95, as Internist from the University of Bari, he worked at the Academic Hospital at the University in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where he completed his Ph.D. Program. In 2010 he was selected as a Full Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, prior to becoming a Full Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bari Medical School in 2015.
Prof. Portincasa is an active member of several International Scientific Societies and journal editorial boards, Member of the Apulian Academy of Sciences (2009), President of the European Society for Clinical Investigation (ESCI: 2011-14). Highly active in international relations, since 2009 he has been the Faculty Delegate for the Erasmus/Long Life Learning Programme for transeuropean mobility of teachers and students. In 2015 he became Vice-Rector for Erasmus+ Affairs at the University of Bari Medical School.
Prof. Gema Frühbeck (RNutr, MD, PhD) combines everyday work in the clinical setting as Director of the Obesity Area and Senior Consultant at the Department of Endocrinology & Nutrition of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) with basic research as Head of the Metabolic Research Laboratory of the University of Navarra and Project Leader of CIBEROBN (Centre of Excellence Network in Obesity and Nutrition of the Spanish Institute of Health). Her group has taken the step forward of routinely using body composition measurements in the clinical assessment of patients in order to analyse the relevance of body fat -beyond body mass index in comorbidity development. In 1997 she took part in a Royal
Society postdoctoral stay with Prof. Andrew Prentice’s Energy Group at the MRC Dunn Clinical Nutrition Centre in Cambridge, UK. In 2009 she was unanimously voted President-Elect of the European Association for the Study of Obesity. Prof. Frühbeck is also a recipient of the Nutrition Society’s Silver Medal, UK (2000), “Sir David Cuthbertson Medal” (2005), Lilly Distinguished Career Award in Endocrinology & Nutrition (2011) and Albert Struyvenberg Medal (2013). From 2012-2015 Prof. Frühbeck served as President of the European Association for the Study of Obesity.
Dr. Hendrik Nathoe was born in Surinam, South America and emigrated to the Netherlands in 1983. He received his MD at the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam in 1991(summa cum laude) and his PhD at the University of Utrecht in 2003. He is appointed as a general cardiologist and associate professor of cardiology at the University Medical Center Utrecht since 2006. He is medical head of the outpatient clinic of the Cardiovascular Disease Center at the University Medical Center Utrecht since 2018.
His research area is oriented in a broad field of cardiovascular disease. He (co)-authored 120 peer reviewed articles, also published in high-impact journals as NEJM, JAMA and Circulation.
He is member of several international societies such as the European Society of Cardiology. He is actively involved in editorial boards of many international journals and was deputy editor of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (2013-2015).
He is past-president of the European Society for Clinical Investigation (2015-2019) and is incoming Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (2020-2025).
