Catalogo dei Corsi di studio

Alessio Molfino, MD, PhD
Alessio Molfino received his M.D. cum laude in 2003 at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, and he concluded cum laude in 2008 his residency/fellowship ( specialist ) in Internal Medicine. In 2012 he received his Ph.D. in Clinical and Preventive Nutrition at University of Rome Tor Vergata .

He was post-doctoral research fellow (2012-2015), and from 2015 Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at Sapienza University of Rome, where he is currently Associate Professor of Internal Medicine. In November 2020 he obtained the National Scientific Qualification (ASN) to function as Full Professor of Internal Medicine.

In the years 2010- 2015 he held the position of Research Associate at University of California, Davis, U.S.A. where he conducted clinical and experimental studies on secondary anorexia, malnutrition and body composition modifications in both clinical and experimental settings within projects funded by several American Research Institutes, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His principal fields of research are protein-energy malnutrition, metabolism, anorexia and cachexia associated with chronic diseases, in particular cancer.
He received several research awards from national and international scientific societies (SIMI, EFIM, ESPEN) related to original data sent to national/international conferences. In the years 2012-2015 he received for 4 consecutive years the Young Investigator grant from Umberto Veronesi Foundation for projects on the pathophysiology of cancer anorexia, and for studying metabolic and nutritional changes in breast cancer. By these grants, several seminal publications were obtained (first author position in all the papers produced), in particular in the prestigious J Cachexia Sarcopenia and Muscle (doi: 10.1002/jcsm.12156) in the year 2017 (IF: 12.511); Int J Mol Sci. (doi: 10.3390/ijms17040505) in the year 2016 (IF: 4.183); Front Physiol. (doi: 10.3389/fphys.2017.00549) in the year 2017 (IF: 3.201); Oxid Med Cell Longev. (doi: 10.1155/2019/1280987) in the year 2019 (IF: 4.868).

In 2016 Prof. Alessio Molfino actively contributed to International Surveys in cancer patients investigating nutritional and metabolic changes affecting prognosis, whose results were published in an original article in Annals of Oncology (senior author) (doi: 10.1093/annonc/mdw420) (IF 14.196).

In summary, Prof. Alessio Molfino is conducting research in the field of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism focusing on cancer-related anorexia and cachexia, obesity and insulin-resistance. He recently published results on the role of GDF-15 in the pathogenesis of cancer anorexia in patients with lung and gastrointestinal tumors (doi: 10.3390/cancers13010099) (Molfino A et al, Cancers, 2021; IF: 6.126).

Prof. Molfino has performed studies, among others, on the role of the hormone ghrelin in the pathogenesis of anorexia and hypophagia, the role of tryptophan and the cerebral serotoninergic system in the pathogenesis of cancer anorexia, the role of specific substrates (nicotine, carnitine, antioxidants) in experimental models of cancer-related anorexia-cachexia syndrome.

In addition, Prof. Molfino s scientific interests are represented by hospital-related malnutrition and the therapeutic role of artificial nutrition especially in cancer patients.
Noteworthy, he recently validated clinical tools for the assessment of anorexia in cancer patients.