New Clinical Research and Emerging Trends on the Microbiome and Its Influence on Infant Health and Allergy

Barbara Marriage, PhD, RD

Metabolic Dietitian 
Pediatric Nutrition 
Ontario, CA

Barbara Marriage is a consultant in the area of pediatric nutrition. She was a Senior Associate Research Fellow leading the Pediatric Nutrition Science and Innovation group at Abbott Nutrition until May 2021, where she was responsible for clinical research and scientific support for pediatric products globally. She has held positions as Global Science Lead for Pediatric Specialty Nutrition, Associate Director in Global Regulatory Science and Innovation, and Manager of the Pediatric Clinical Nutrition group. In that role, Barbara was responsible for clinical research in infant nutrition, pediatrics, and maternal nutrition.

She is a graduate of the University of Guelph and completed her Master’s and PhD at the University of Alberta. Her PhD work focused on the nutritional management of mitochondrial disorders. Before joining Abbott in 2002, she worked for over 20 years as a clinical research dietitian with extensive experience in pediatric nutrition and management of patients and families with inborn errors of metabolism.  Her research interests include human milk oligosaccharides, gastrointestinal disorders, allergy, and inborn errors of metabolism. Dr Marriage has published over 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals, written book chapters and newsletters, and has given many presentations on nutrition-related topics.

Sharon M Donovan, PhD, RD, DFASN

Professor and Melissa M Noel Endowed Chair
Director, Personalized Nutrition Initiative
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL, USA

Professor Sharon Donovan is the Melissa M Noel Endowed Chair in Nutrition and Health at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  She received her Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of California, Davis, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Research in her laboratory centers on optimizing nutrition in the first 1000 days of life, specifically focusing on the coordinated development of the gut microbiome, immune system, and cognitive development in infants. She also studies how human milk oligosaccharides and proteins influence the composition of the neonatal microbiome and immune function. She has served as president of two societies: the American Society for Nutrition from 2011-2012 and the International Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation from 2018-2020. She served on the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017 and was recently named Chair of the Food and Nutrition Board.

Yvan Vandenplas, MD, PhD

Professor 
University Hospital Brussels (UZ Brussel) 
Brussels, Belgium

Yvan Vandenplas, MD, PhD, did his medical studies at the “Vrije Universiteit Brussel” (Free University of Brussels) and trained in pediatrics (1981-1986) at the same University. He became Head of the Unit for Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition in 1987 and created the Pediatric Hospital, the KidZ Health Castle, at the University Hospital Brussels (UZ Brussel) of the same university, where he had been the Chair of Pediatrics since 1994 up to 2021. He is now Prof. Emeritus and a consultant at the same hospital. He has over 500 publications listed in Medline, including many papers on infant nutrition. He is associate editor of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and Nutrients.