Rate My Professor Chiara Murgia

Chiara Murgia holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology obtained in Italy. In the late 1990s, she spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, USA, where she gained experience in mouse genetics and epithelial cell biology. From 1998, she served for more than 15 years as research staff at the Italian National Institute for Food and Nutrition (INRAN, now CREA) in Rome, participating in and leading projects on the molecular mechanisms of micronutrients' activity, particularly the role of zinc and zinc transporters in health and disease using animal and tissue-culture models. She moved to Australia in early 2014 to take up a lecturer position at Swinburne University, coordinating the nutrition program. In July 2015, Murgia joined Monash University in the Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food as an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, affiliated with the Be Active Sleep Eat (BASE) Facility.

Murgia's research specializations encompass micronutrients metabolism focusing on zinc and zinc transporters, nutrigenomics, nutrigenetics, nutritional physiology, and the impact of nutrition and lifestyle on chronic disease development. She employs cutting-edge molecular techniques such as deep sequencing and RNAseq to explore individual responses to diet and lifestyle, advocating for personalized interventions based on genetic makeup. Her contributions include chief investigator roles in NHMRC-funded projects on zinc and ZIP2 in nitric oxide action and vascular protection against cigarette smoke and cardiovascular disease (2018-2020), and National Heart Foundation projects on meal timing as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease in shift workers (2017-2018). Key publications feature 'A 12-month weight loss intervention in adults with obstructive sleep apnoea: is timing important? A step wedge randomised trial' (2022, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition), 'Transcriptomic Differences between Monozygotic Adolescent Twins Discordant for Metabolic Syndrome Following Weight Loss: A Case Study' (2022, Twin Research and Human Genetics), 'Blunted nutrient-response pathways in adipose tissue following high fat meals in men with metabolic syndrome: A randomized postprandial transcriptomic study' (2021, Clinical Nutrition), and 'Transcriptomic changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells with weight loss: systematic literature review and primary data synthesis' (2021, Genes & Nutrition). She received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Education (Teaching Excellence) in 2019 as part of the Monash Nutrition Indigenous Curriculum Working Group. Murgia served as Editor-in-Chief of Nutrients journal from December 2017 to November 2018 and as an editorial board member for Genes and Nutrition from 2016.