Marta Guasch Ferre

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• CV
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Primary fields of research

My research focuses on investigating the role of dietary and lifestyle factors in chronic diseases, specifically, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). I have incorporated high-throughput –omics techniques, metabolomics, and genetics, into traditional epidemiological analysis to gain insights into underlying mechanisms that could explain the associations between diet and lifestyle factors in relation to CVD and T2D.

My research group is dedicated to integrating nutrition and lifestyle with big data to advance the prevention of non-communicable diseases such as CVD and T2D.

I am also a Group Leader at Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, United States.

Current research

• Nutritional Epidemiology - Diet for the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases: Evaluating the association between several dietary factors, dietary patterns, and chronic diseases in the context of large prospective cohort studies, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professional’s Follow-up Study (United States).
• The interplay between diet, metabolomics, and cardiometabolic diseases: Co-Investigator of international, multi-institutional collaborative NIH (National Institutes of Health, US) funded projects in the context of Mediterranean diet, plasma metabolites, and cardiometabolic diseases within the PREDIMED trial (Spain). PREDIMED trial is the largest dietary intervention trial for the primary prevention of CVD.
• Circulating metabolites, lifestyle factors, and mortality risk: PI of an NIH-funded grant which leverages unique resources with longitudinal data to identify metabolite profiles and networks associated with total mortality, longevity, and healthy aging.
• Leveraging big data to improve diet biomarkers: Leveraging large cohort studies and clinical trials with dietary data and metabolomics to advance in the field of improving objective dietary biomarkers through metabolomics.
• The intersection between nutrition, environmental determinants, and their impact on both human and planetary health. Co-Investigator of a project aimed at developing a planetary healthy diet score (PHD) based on the EAT-Lancet recommendations to identify dietary patterns healthy for humans and the planet and their associations with chronic diseases.

Teaching

Supervisor for bachelor students, master students, and PhD students.

Fields of interest

Nutrition, epidemiology, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolomics