Endocrinology and Systemic Diseases

Prof. Piero Portincasa (M.D., Ph.D. [Utrecht], dr. H. Causa) is Full Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief of the Academic Division of Internal Medicine "A. Murri," Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology at the University "Aldo Moro" Medical School and of the Unit of Internal Medicine "A. Pende," Regional Hospital Policlinico in Bari, Italy. He is director of the 4-year residency program in geriatrics. The activities as internist, teacher, and scientist combine both basic and clinical research in the field of dyslipidaemia and metabolic disorders, liver steatosis and gallstone disease, and rare autoinflammatory diseases (Familial Mediterranean Fever). His teaching and research group deals with aspects of food digestion and intolerances, gastrointestinal motility, and application of standard and novel diagnostic tests in gastrointestinal and liver diseases. He is author of more than 500 international papers and several books and chapters.
Prof. Portincasa worked as University Research Fellow at Guy's Hospital, London, UK (1985-87); as Clinician and Ph.D. student at the Academic Hospital in Utrecht, the Netherlands (1993-95); and as Clinical Fellow of the National Research Centre (CNR) at Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, Boston, USA (2005). He served as Councillor of the European Society for Clinical Investigation, ESCI (2008-11), President of ESCI (2011-15), President of Foundation of European Journal of Clinical Investigation (2015-18), and since 2018 is President of ESCI Trust. He was the organizer of the 2010 Annual scientific Meeting of ESCI in Bari and he will organize again the next ESCI meeting in 2021, in Bari. Prof. Portincasa holds the Laurea H. Causa at the Universities "C. Davila," Bucharest (2013), "Iuliu Hatieganu" Cluj-Napoca (2013), and "George Emil Palade" Targu-Mures (2018), Romania. He is member of the Apulian Academy of Sciences, past Councillor and Secretary (2013-17) of the Italian Society Internal Medicine, and recipient of the prestigious ESCI Albert Struyvenberg Medal in 2018. He also holds the Fellowship of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGAF). Prof. Portincasa is active in international relations as Erasmus+ coordinator in Bari and worldwide as member of several international scientific societies and journal editorial boards. He is mentoring undergraduate and postgraduate students of medicine, biology, and pharmacy also involved in the Horizon 2020 Foie Gras project.

Prof. Gema Frühbeck (RNutr, M.D., Ph.D.) combines everyday work in the clinical setting as Director of the Obesity Area and Senior Consultant in the Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition at the Clínica Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) with basic research as Head of the Metabolic Research Laboratory at 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 analyze the relevance of body fat - beyond body mass index - in comorbidity development. In 1997, she worked as Postdoctoral Fellow of the Royal Society in 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 and Nutrition (2011), and Albert Struyvenberg Medal (2013). From 2012 to 2015 Prof. Frühbeck served as President of the European Association for the Study of Obesity. She has also served as Councillor of the European Society for Clinical Investigation (2014-2018).

Hendrik M. Nathoe was born in Surinam, South America, and moved to the Netherlands in 1983.
He studied medicine at the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam and graduated summa cum laude in 1991. Prof. Nathoe received his Ph.D. degree in 2004 from the University of Utrecht under supervision of Prof. Diederick Grobbee and Prof. Peter de Jaegere His thesis was entitled Coronary revascularization: Stentimplantation, on-pump or off-pump bypass surgery.
After his training he was appointed in 2006 at the University Medical Center Utrecht as General Cardiologist and Associate Professor of Cardiology.
Since 2018, he has been Medical Head of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease, the care facility of the UMC Utrecht research focus "Circulatory Health". Here, he collaborates with other vascular specialists to optimize the care of multidisciplinary vascular patients. In 2019, this center was accredited as one of the first in Europe by the European Society of Cardiology for primary and secondary prevention and sports medicine.
Since 2020, he has been appointed as Medical Head of the outpatient clinic in the Department of Cardiology at UMC Utrecht.
Prof. Nathoe was involved in the governance of the European Society for Clinical Investigation (ESCI) since 2013 as Secretary Treasurer and President. He organized the annual scientific meeting of ESCI in 2014 in Utrecht.
He (co)-authored 125 peer-reviewed articles of whom one as first author in the New England Journal of Medicine. He supervised 6 Ph.D. students.
He is member of many steering committees such as SMART study, CHASE investigators, Octopus study, BEACON trial, DECS study, and MARC study.
Prof. Nathoe was involved in the 2019 European Society of Cardiology guidelines on "the management of chronic coronary syndromes."
Since 2020, he is Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.