Research Program. Precision nutrition and obesity
Group leader: Dra. Julie Chowen
Objectives:The focus of this Program is on childhood obesity and the study of the molecular basis of this disease and its comorbidities in order to promote precision therapies, including nutritional approaches and new treatments for monogenic obesity. It is essential to know the causes of childhood obesities, including epigenetics, genetics, genomics and diet and to investigate their influence on longterm health outcomes. Special attention is placed on understanding and predicting the development of comorbidities in children with severe early onset obesity, including metabolomics and microbiota analysis. Preclinical studies to understand the effects of early nutrition and hormonal changes on long-term metabolic health and how the brain, especially glial cells, responds to specific nutrients that affect metabolism and neuroinflammation are also a major focus of this program.
Dra. Julie Chowen
Investigator 
of the Community of Madrid Category A in the Department of Pediatrics and laboratory of Research at the Niño Jesús University Children’s Hospital in Madrid. Associate researcher of IMDEA Food. Co-Director of the Childhood Precision Nutrition Program
Dr. Chowen received her PhD in Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. She obtained a postdoctoral position and later as a research associate at the Cajal Institute, CSIC, Madrid, Spain. She is currently President of the Scientific Committee of the Foundation for Biomedical Investigation of the Niño Jesús University Children’s Hospital in Madrid. Co-IP in the CIBER of Obesity and Nutrition. Her main interests include the neuroendocrine control of metabolism and appetite, with a special emphasis on the participation of astrocytes in the physiological and pathophysiological control of metabolism and the developmentof comorbidities associated to obesity. Her research also includes the neuroendocrine response to specificnutrients, long-term effects of the early nutritional environment and sex differences in response to nutritional/ metabolic challenges. She has published over 200 original articles and has given lectures at the most important international meetings of endocrinology, neuroendocrinology and obesity.
Dr. Jesús Argente Oliver
Full Professor and Director of the Department of Pediatrics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Director of the Department of Pediatrics and Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics and Pediatric Endocrinology and Director of the Laboratory of Research at the Niño Jesús University Children’s Hospital. Associate researcher of IMDEA Food. Director of the Childhood Precision Nutrition Program
Dr. Argente is IP in the CIBER of Obesity and Nutrition, being the leader of the childhood obesity program. He obtained his medical degree at the University of Zaragoza and completed his pediatric residency at the Hospital Ramón y Cajal in Madrid and has worked at the Hospital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris, France, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, USA and at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA. His main research interests include childhood obesity, pathophysiology of human growth, puberty, eating disorders and diabetes. He has published more than 300 original articles and has lectured in more than 30 countries. He is past president of the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and past president of the Spanish Society for Pediatric Endocrinology (SEEP). He has obtained multiple national and international awards for his research.
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