UCLA Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Symposium in Precision Health
Event Information
The UCLA Institute for Precision Health hosted the 3rd Annual Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Symposium in Precision Nutrition, Health & Wellness on October 24, 2024 at UCLA CNSI. This full-day symposium focused on the scientific challenges and opportunities in precision nutrition and exercise for optimizing health outcomes.
The event was divided into two sessions:
- The first session covered the roles of GLP-1 agonists and nutrigenomics in health and disease.
- The second session focused on the microbiome and exercise and their impact on health and disease.
Each session featured expert speakers who shared their insights and research. Following the presentations, panel discussions allowed speakers to delve deeper into their respective topics.
All graduate students and postdoctoral fellows were encouraged to submit an abstract for the poster session.
Jose Ordovas, PhD
Nutrigenomics and Chronobiology: The Synergistic Impact of Diet, Sleep, and Genetic Factors on Chronic Disease
Stan Hazen, MD, PhD
Personalized cardiovascular health through pharmacological targeting of your gut microbiome.
Dr. Stanley Hazen received clinical training in Internal Medicine and subspecialty training in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism from Barnes/Jewish Hospital, and a PhD in Biophysical Chemistry and Molecular Biology from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO. He holds multiple leadership positions at the Cleveland Clinic including chair, Department of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Sciences, co-section head, Preventive Cardiology & Rehabilitation, and Director, Center for Microbiome & Human Health. Read more...
Speakers
Andres Acosta, MD, PhD
Path to Precision Obesity: From Phenotypes to Genotypes to Predict Response to Obesity Interventions
Dr. Acosta is a physician, scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, and Obesity Medicine and Nutrition. Dr. Acosta holds an MD from Universidad San Francisco De Quito, Ecuador, and a PhD from University of Florida, Gainesville. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Consultant in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. He co-directs the Nutrition Obesity Research Program and directs the Precision Medicine for Obesity Program at Mayo Clinic. Read more...
Kirsi Pietilainen, MD, PhD
Advancing Obesity Treatment: Exploring Molecular Mechanisms of Obesity and Gut-Hormone-Based Therapies
KP received her Master of Science in Nutrition with honors from the University of Helsinki in 1994, her MD in 2001, and her PhD in Medicine in 2005. In 2012, she became a Specialist in Internal Medicine and was appointed as rank #1 to the University of Helsinki's first prestigious tenure track program. She was promoted to Professor in Clinical Metabolism in 2017. Currently, KP leads the Obesity Research Unit and serves as Programme Director of the Research Programme for Clinical and Molecular Metabolism at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. Read more...
Zhaoping Li, MD
What we have learnt about GLP-1 agonist for weight loss.
Zhaoping Li, MD, PhD is the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Endowed Chair in Human Nutrition, Professor and Chief of the Division of Clinical Nutrition in the Department of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is also the Chair of Medicine at the Greater Los Angeles VA Health System and is the Director of the multidisciplinary UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. Read more...
Laurie Goodyear, PhD
Novel Mechanisms Mediating the Benefits of Exercise of Metabolic Health.
John Thyfault,PhD, FACSM, FTOS
Hepatic metabolism: the center of metabolic protection induced by exercise.
Dr. John Thyfault’s research expertise is in exercise metabolism and mitochondrial energetics in the context of obesity and metabolic disease. His lab uses translational research approaches in animal models and human subjects to determine how exercise, physical activity, and aerobic capacity reduce susceptibility to chronic metabolic disease conditions. Dr. Thyfault is a Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Department of Cellular Biology and Physiology and Department of Internal Medicine-Division of Endocrinology. He is also a Research Scientist at the KC VA Medical Center in Kansas City. Read more...
Suzanne Devkota, PhD
Microbiome-adipose cross-talk and implications for chronic inflammatory diseases
Dr. Devkota is an Associate Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Human Microbiome Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Associate Professor-in-Residence at UCLA; and an adjunct investigator at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School. She has been studying the effect of diet on gut microbiome structure and function in metabolic and inflammatory bowel diseases for the past 16 years, and more recently her lab has developed interest in the microbial ecology of gut bacterial translocation in the human body, and the body’s concomitant response to manage microbes in atypical body sites. Read more...