Assistant professor
University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Samaneh Farsijani is a dietitian and nutritional epidemiologist with an extensive interdisciplinary research background, spanning from basic biology to epidemiology. Her primary research focus lies in the optimization of nutritional recommendations for older adults through the implementation of precision nutrition techniques, including integrating omics data (e.g., gut microbiome and metabolome) with non-omics data (e.g., dietary intake) to develop age-specific dietary recommendations that challenge the prevailing one-size-fits-all approach and ultimately promote healthy aging. Dr. Farsijani actively engages in large dataset analysis, including the processing of NHANES data, to unravel the role of chrononutrition in health. Her pioneering work seeks to enhance dietary recommendations by incorporating not only the quantity and quality of food intake but also the timing of consumption.
Dr. Farsijani also serves as the leader of the Microbiome & Inflammaging Ancillary Study of Muscle, Mobility, and Aging (SOMMA) cohort supported by her NIH/NIA K01 award (AG071855-01A1). This significant initiative aims to elucidate the crosstalk between diet, gut microbiome, inflammation, and aging outcomes in older adults. Dr. Farsijani also actively participates in aging microbiome projects, analyzing gut microbiome data from the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men (MrOS) Study. As a member of the CHARGE microbiome consortium, she contributes to a meta-analysis examining the relationship between the gut microbiome, aging, frailty, and mortality using data from diverse studies, including MrOS, Rotterdam, Framingham, and HCHS/SOL.