Charlene W. Compher

An enhanced understanding of the role of diet in health and disease is a compelling challenge of the 21st century. Through her research and clinical practice, Charlene W. Compher works to meet this challenge while enhancing the quality of nutrition care of vulnerable populations and training the next generation of nutrition scientists and nurses. Embedding nutrition science into investigations of diet-disease relationships is an essential step towards health promotion and disease prevention. Establishing the evidence to support nutrition care for health systems and clinicians will improve the quality of healthcare globally. Dr. Compher’s team science research is directed towards clarifying the impact of dietary or nutritional intake, in the context of gut intestinal microbiota and metabolites, on health and disease. She has developed novel tools to obtain diet quality information in a user-friendly format. The strong association between unhealthy diet and increased burden of chronic noncommunicable diseases is recognized in the US and globally. Chronic and acute diseases can lead to malnutrition that requires diagnosis and effective treatment. Dr. Compher’s research, clinical practice, and global collaborations converge to address these key concerns in vulnerable populations. Research on Diet Quality, Gut Microbiota and Metabolites to Advance Nutrition Science. Much of Dr. Compher’s current research examines links between diet, the gut microbiota, metabolites, and important clinical outcomes. As Director of Clinical Initiatives for the Penn Center for Nutrition Science and Medicine (PenNSAM https://www.med.upenn.edu/pennsam/), she facilitates the incorporation of dietary intake information into team science projects. She leads the development of the Penn Healthy Diet survey to obtain information about diet quality for nutrition counseling sessions as well as for microbiome and metabolome investigations.

Dashti HS, Sevilla-Gonzalez M, Mogensen KM, Winkler MF, Compher C. Clin Nutr ESPEN 2024 Plasma metabolomics changes comparing daytime to overnight infusions of home parenteral nutrition in adult patients with short bowel syndrome: Secondary analysis of a clinical trial. Clin Nutr ESPEN 2024 Aug;62:28-32. doi: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2024.04.025. Epub 2024 May 13.PMID: 38901946 Compher C, Fukushima R,Correia MITD, Gonzalez MC, McKeever L,Nakamura K, Lee ZY, Patel JJ, Singer P, Stoppe C,Ayala JC, Barazzoni R, Berger MM, Cederholm T, Chittawatanarat K, Cotoia A, Lopez-Delgado JC, Earthman CP, Elke G, Hartl W, Hasan MS, Higashibeppu N, Jensen GL, Lambell KJ, Lew CCH, Mechanick JI, Mourtzakis M, Nogales GCC, Oshima T, Peterson SJ, Rice TW, Rosenfeld R, Sheean P, Silva FM, Tah PC, Uyar M. Recognizing M