Enzo Spisni PhD

Enzo Spisni is an associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Translational Physiology and Nutrition of the Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences of the University of Bologna. He is a member of the scientific committee of the Master (II level) in Nutrition and Education to Health, at the University of Bologna and lecturer in the Master in Organic Production at the same University.

He teaches the course of Nutrition Physiology, Degree Course in Biology of Health, the courses of Nutrition and Environmental Sustainability and General Physiology, Degree Course in Biological Sciences, and various modules within the Master's Degree in Nutrition and Education to Health. Since 2008 he has been collaborating with specialists of the gastrointestinal tract, on various projects aimed at understanding the alteration of the physiological mechanisms involved in the onset of intestinal and systemic pathologies, through the study of translational physiology.

The research that arises and develops in these collaborative projects is directed toward understanding the complex interactions between nutrients and human physiology. These mechanisms primarily involve immunity, but also the enteric nervous system and the intestinal microbiome, a fundamental element of integration between nutrients and the host physiology. Among the collaborations, still ongoing, of particular importance are the ones with the Regional Reference Center for Chronic Intestinal Inflammatory Diseases of the Sant'Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital of Bologna, directed by Prof. Paolo Gionchetti and the one with the Department of Agro-Food Sciences and Technologies (Prof. Giovanni Dinelli).

In the context of these numerous and fruitful collaborations, prof. Spisni has strongly contributed to bringing the Physiological and Nutritional vision within the more purely clinical vision of medical collaborators. It is precisely from this integration that pre-clinical and clinical studies are born and developed aimed at evaluating the effect of nutrition on the regulation of the physiology of the gastrointestinal tract, through mechanisms of nutrient signaling and modulation of the microbiota. These studies have been performed in both animal models and patients, in the form of pilot or randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials.