From early in the morning to late at night, Francesca Amati, MD and doctoral student in Health and Physical Activity under the supervision of Dr. Bret Goodpaster, can be found developing and refining her technical skills of measurements and testing techniques in areas such as the glucose clamp for the measurement of skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, the utilisation of stable isotopes, Dual X-Ray absorptionmetry, muscle biopsies for histology staining or electron microscopy, and the utilisation of imaging (CT and MRI) for assessing body composition.
In addition to working with patients Francesca is also responsible for organising and compiling the databases, and analysing the data using the different statistical tests depending on the different questions to answer.
Francesca was awarded a American College of Sports Medicine Doctoral Student Grant and a School of Education Faculty/Student grant. Both grants will be used to fund for her dissertation using MRI technology.
Prior to arriving at Pitt, Francesca completed a bachelors degree at College Rousseau (Switzerland), medical school and a specialization in Internal Medicine at the University of Geneva, She then worked 3 years in the Division of Therapeutic Patient Education for Chronic Diseases. Upon her return to Geneva, Francesca plans to continue her clinical research in the field of exercise and metabolic diseases in the Service of Chronic Patient Education of the University of Geneva. This will be more translational medicine as it will be incorporated into clinical research in a disease management and treatment setting. In addition, she will participate in the creation and teaching of a Masters Degree in physical activity applied to chronic diseases in the new Institute of Movement Sciences and Sports Medicine of the University of Geneva.
