Principal investigator

Prof. De Vito is member of Italian Physiological Societies and was Associate Editor of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity (until 2016) and is at present member of the editorial board of the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology and Associate editor for the Journal Frontiers Physiology. Fellow of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS) he was until 2020 an elected member of the Council of the International society of Electromyography and Kinesiology (ISEK). Recently he was one of the three presidents of the ECSS annual congress that was held in Dublin in July 2018. He has published more than 120 peer reviewed articles. He has conducted several studies which investigated aspects of muscle function and neuromuscular control both in older and young subjects. More recently he started a new line of research that concerns the study of sarcopenia and how it relates to both aging and chronic diseases such as in type 1 and 2 diabetes. In particular, the mechanisms underlying muscle atrophy and the application of specific interventions based on exercise alone or combined with a nutritional supplementation were investigated in his laboratory. In particular, he is studying at present the application of High-density electromyography in the context of the diabetic myopathy. In 2017 he obtained a large grant funding a study (Genofit) which proposes the collection of a large population (>6000 individuals aged 18 to >80 years) dataset including full genome, body composition, muscle function, cardiorespiratory fitness and nutritional and health profile of fitness and health values specifically from a representative component of the population of Ireland and to search for a genetic basis of fitness and health.

PhD student

Mr. Giacomo Valli obtained an MSc degree in sports science for health and prevention with the evaluation of 110/110 cum laude and academic mention in 2019 (University of Urbino). During the master school, he spent a semester at the University College Dublin for study and research purpose. During the master school he worked on the investigation of the effects of acute exercises on glucose variability and skeletal muscle signalling responses in type 1 diabetes. After the degree, he obtained a 9-month research fellowship at the University of Urbino at the laboratory of molecular biology to continue the investigation on the effects of chronic exercise on glycaemic control and skeletal muscle health in type 1 diabetes. In 2020, he started a PhD in biomedical sciences at the University of Padova and he is now investigating the neuromuscular degeneration during disease, disuse and aging with the technique of hi-density electromyography.

Collaborator

Marco Narici (PhD) is Professor in Physiology at the University of Padova, Italy. He worked as researcher at the Rodolfo Margaria Laboratory, University of Milan, Italy, and took up the position of Assistant Professor at the Medical Research Centre of Geneva University, CH (1994-96). In 1999 he moved back to the UK as Professor in Physiology of Ageing at Manchester Metropolitan University where he was Director of the Institute of Research into Human Movement. In 2012, he was appointed as Professor in Clinical Physiology at the University of Nottingham to work at the MRC ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing. In 2017 he moved back to Italy, to the University of Padova where he took the chair in Physiology at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Medicine. He has been coordinator of the EC FP5 project BETTER AGEING and Co-I of European Union FP7 Project MYOAGE, he has been part of EU Framework 7 Advisory Panels for Ageing Research (LinkAge, WhyWeAge). He was President of the European College of Sport Science (2013-15). He has published over 240 peer reviewed journal articles (H-factor 66) and book chapters. His present work and interests are focused on the mechanisms of remodeling of human neuromuscular system with exercise, inactivity (including spaceflight) and ageing. He is presently coordinating the NeuAge PRIN Project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) focusing on the Mechanisms of Neuromuscular Ageing and its Functional Implications, and coordinator of Italian Space Agency (ASI) project, MARS-PRE, focusing on the identification of early biomarkers of pathophysiological alterations of different organs and systems to simulated microgravity.