Molecular Nutrition

Manlio Vinciguerra, BSc, MSc, PhD is a Principal Research Associate at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, University College London (UCL), UK. He holds research appointments at the International Clinical Research Center (ICRC), St. Anne's University Hospital, Brno, Czech Republic, and at the Italian Liver Foundation, University of Trieste, Italy. He obtained his BSc with Honours from the University of Catania, Italy, in 1999, with an experimental thesis performed at St. Radboud University Hospital, Nijmegen, Netherlands, on mitochondrial porins. In 2001, he joined the Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva (Switzerland), as a PhD student. In 2005 he joined as a post-doc the Department of Cell Physiology and Metabolism, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva (Switzerland). In 2008, supported by an interdisciplinary fellowship (EIPOD) he undertook a second post-doctoral project at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), between Heidelberg (Germany) and Monterotondo (Italy), prior to joining UCL. Dr. Vinciguerra delivered seminars in more than 20 countries, and he authored over 110 papers research and review papers on epigenetics, liver diseases, metabolism and cancer. Paul Cordero Sanchez, Pharmacist, MSc, PhD is a researcher at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, at University College London (London, United Kingdom). Dr. Cordero was graduated in 2007 at University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) in Pharmacy. During his degree he worked on research at Microbiology Department and at the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Physiology. Moreover, he obtained a fellowship to carry out a stay at Santo Antonio Hospital (Porto, Portugal). After his master degree on Metabolism and Nutrition he obtained a competitive fellowship to perform his PhD in Pharmacy, gained on October 2012, at the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Physiology at University of Navarra. During his career he has also carried out stays at Catalan Institute of Oncology (Barcelona, Spain) and University of Cambridge (Cambridge, United Kingdom). His research has been focused in the molecular regulation of diet-induced obesity and its comorbidities. He has worked on human and animal trials focused both in adult life, as well as in maternal nutrition during perinatal stages and its consequences on the offspring risk of suffer metabolic diseases. He has lectured in national and international symposia, reviewed journal and grant agencies and coordinated and organized conferences. He is also currently a member of the European Nutrition Leadership Platform.

Part 1: General and Introductory Aspects 1. Diet and maternal nutrition: an overview 2. Placenta metabolism 3. Pregnancy and weight gain 4. Breast milk feeding and impact on the infant: an overview 5. Feeding practices of infants 6. Nutritionally-driven gestational diseases and impact on health of the mother and infant 7. Glucose metabolism and pregnancy 8. Immune aspects of pregnancy and role of nutrition 9. Vitamin status in pregnancy and newborns 10. Fatty acid intake during perinatal periods 11. Mineral in pregnancy and newborns 12. Perinatal interventions; current and future perspectives 13. Perinatal nutrition and obesity

Part 2: Molecular Biology of the Cell 14. Molecular aspects of fetal programming 15. Molecular aspects of dietary bioactive compounds in pregnancy 16. Amino acid transporters and protein metabolism in intrauterine growth (can focus on a single or groups of amino acids such as tryptophan) 17. Maternal micronutrients and one carbon metabolism 18. Overnutrition and mitochondrial function 19. mTOR, insulin/IGF-I signalling in relation to nutrients in pregnancy 20. Maternal high fat diet and molecular aspects of vascular function 21. Caffeine exposure and CNS developmental processes

Part 3: Genetic Machinery and Its Function 22. Genetic risk factors in nutrient metabolism and fetal development 23. Pregnancy loss and polymorphisms in folic acid genes 24. Maternal vitamins and DNA methylation and implications for offspring (may want to focus on B vitamins) 25. Maternal obesity, and genes involved in lipid metabolism 26. Diet in lactation periods and impact on cancer: genetic aspects of mammary tissue 27. Maternal diet consumption and microRNAs 28. Vitamins (example of vitamin D) in pregnancy and gene expression 29. Epigenetic changes associated to different fat consumption 30. Epigenetic genes and maternal obesity 31. Transcriptomics of cord blood and implications for nutrition and diet 32. Maternal undernutrition and organ microRNAs 33. Genomic imprinting and fetal development (to link with nutrition and growth) 34. Nutritional influence on miRNA epigenetic regulation