Paolo Gava, a professional engineer, who has become a Master athlete, an amateur scientist and a lifelong friend


https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2021.10260
Vol. 31 No. 4 (2021)
Published: 5 November 2021
Paolo Gava, Master athlete, Master World Records, aging and sports sciences
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Authors

  • Ugo Carraro
    ugo.carraro@unipd.it
    CIR-Myo - Interdepartmental Research Center of Myology, University of Padova, Italy; Department of Biomedical Sciences (DBS), University of Padova, Italy; A-C M-C Foundation for Translational Myology, Padova, Italy. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0924-4998
  • Helmut Kern Physiko- und Rheumatherapie, St. Pölten, Austria; Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Rehabilitation Research, St Pölten, Austria; Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Prim. Dr. H Kern GmbH, Amstetten, Austria.
  • Giovanna Albertin CIR-Myo - Interdepartmental Research Center of Myology, University of Padova, Italy; Department of Neuroscience (DNS), Section of Human Anatomy, University of Padova, Italy.

Paolo Gava, (Conegliano, Treviso, September 1, 1946 – Stra, Venezia, Italy, July 19, 2021) was a sustainable resources engineer, who worked in Italy, France and England, leading research programs well before the current international interest in countering global warming. Passionate about Tango, Paolo kept himself in shape for many decades by running or pedaling or roller-skating, after years of training as a semi-professional athlete, competing and winning Italian and European short distance races in the Master classes. Then, Paolo applied his engineering skills to optimize comparisons between the results of the different Classes of Master Athletes, questioning the rules used by Italian and World Master Sports Associations. Friendly discussing during an after-dinner, he shocked us claiming that, in absence of diseases and trauma (Early Aging), the aging decay is a linear process from 30 to 110 years. Under our friendly pressure he was able to publish his first biomedical article, detailing his mathematical approaches and results in a 2015 issue of Experimental Aging Research, titled: Age-associated power decline from running, jumping and throwing male master world records. To honor his other legacies during his last six years of life, we add here further examples of Paolo's scientific studies and his relationships with senior colleagues and young students of sports and aging sciences.


Gava P, Kern H, Carraro U. Age-associated power decline from running, jumping, and throwing male masters world records. Exp Aging Res. 2015;41(2):115-35. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0361073X.2015.1001648

Carraro U, Kern H, Gava P, Hofer C, Loefler S, Gargiulo P, Mosole S, Zampieri S, Gobbo V, Ravara B, Piccione F, Marcante A, Baba A, Schils S, Pond A, Gava F. Biology of Muscle Atrophy and of its Recovery by FES in Aging and Mobility Impairments: Roots and By-Products. Eur J Transl Myol. 2015 Aug 25;25(4):221-30. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2015.5272

Carraro U, Kern H, Gava P, Hofer C, Loefler S, Gargiulo P, Edmunds K, Árnadóttir ÍD, Zampieri S, Ravara B, Gava F, Nori A, Gobbo V, Masiero S, Marcante A, Baba A, Piccione F, Schils S, Pond A, Mosole S. Recovery from muscle weakness by exercise and FES: lessons from Masters, active or sedentary seniors and SCI patients. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2017 Aug;29(4):579-590. Epub 2016 Sep 3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-016-0619-1

Gava P, Giuriati W, Ravara B. Gender difference of aging performance decay rate in normalized Masters World Records of Athletics: much less than expected. Eur J Transl Myol. 2020 Apr 1;30(1):8869. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2019.8869

Zuccon D. Analisi della partecipazione e della prestazione di atleti senior machili e femminili in diverse edizioni della Venicemarathon. University of Padova. Thesis in Sport Sciences (Italian with English summary).

Timing Data Service: https://tds.sport/it

Stones MJ. Age Differences, Age Changes, and Generalizability in Marathon Running by Master Athletes. Front Psychol. 2019 Sep 20;10:2161. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02161

Running USA. Available online: https://www.runningusa.org// (accessed on 15 February 2019)

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Nikolaidis PT, Cuk I, Rosemann T, Knechtle B. Performance and Pacing of Age Groups in Half-Marathon and Marathon. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 May 20;16(10):1777. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16101777

Leyk D, Erley O, Gorges W, Ridder D, Rüther T, Wunderlich M, Sievert A, Essfeld D, Piekarski C, Erren T. Performance, training and lifestyle parameters of marathon runners aged 20-80 years: results of the PACE-study. Int J Sports Med. 2009 May;30(5):360-5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0028-1105935

Marzetti E, Calvani R, Tosato M, Cesari M, Di Bari M, Cherubini A, Broccatelli M, Savera G, D'Elia M, Pahor M, Bernabei R, Landi F; SPRINTT Consortium. Physical activity and exercise as countermeasures to physical frailty and sarcopenia. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2017 Feb;29(1):35-42. Epub 2017 Feb 8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-016-0705-4

Albertin G, Astolfi L, Falda M, Zuccon D, Ravara B, Kern H, Ferrante G, De Caro R, Guidolin D. From 2003 to 2019 the participation in the Venice Marathon of female Master Athletes continued to increase. Eur J Transl Myol. 31 (4): 10266, 2021.

Ugo Carraro, CIR-Myo - Interdepartmental Research Center of Myology, University of Padova, Italy; Department of Biomedical Sciences (DBS), University of Padova, Italy; A-C M-C Foundation for Translational Myology, Padova

CURRICULUM VITAE: Prof. UGO CARRARO

ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0924-4998

Prof. Ugo Carraro, M.D.,

Senior Scholar of the University of Padova, Italy

Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy

phone: +39 338 1575745

E-mail: ugo.carraro@unipd.it

 

Born:                      February 23, 1943, Abano Terme (Padova), Italy

Citizenship:           Italy

Degree and Academic Positions

-       M.D. (Laurea in Medicina e Chirurgia), University of Padua, Italy -1968

-       Associate Professor of General Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Padova,1983-2013

-       Principal Investigator of the Laboratory of Applied Myology of the C.N.R Institute of Neuroscience, 1983-2000

-       Acting-director of the Department of Biomedical Science -1998 to 2003;

-       Principal Investigator of the Translational Myology Lab, Department of Biomedical Science -1998 to 2013

-       Interdepartmental Research Center of Myology (cirMYO), Founder and Head 2005 - 2011

Other Professional Activities

-       1991-2019 – Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Basic Applied Myology: 1991 to date

-       Consultant of I.R.C.C.S. Ospedale San Camillo di Venezia-Lido, Italy

-        Referee for International Journals and Granting Agencies: J Cell Biol, Muscle&Nerve, Artificial Organs, J Muscle Res Cell Motility, Artificial Organs, Cell Death & Differentiation, Annals Thoracic Surgery, Acta Physiologica, The Open Rehabilitation Journal, Association Française contre les Myopathies

-       Organizer of International Conferences and Courses

-       Invited speaker and chairman in International Conferences

Main Research Interests

-       Translational Myology: Basics of muscle plasticity and their applications to medical research, in particular:

  • Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) of denervated human muscle
  • Role of regenerative myogenesis in exercise-induced muscle damage and denervation
  • Reconstruction, neurotization and artificial synaptogenesis of ablated skeletal muscle
  • Analyses in muscle atrophy and apoptosis of role of Cytokines and Myokines by invasive and non-invasive samplings

 

Achievments and expertises

Prof. Ugo Carraro is a world-class leader in molecular and structural analyses of skeletal muscle. He developed bi-dimensional gel electrophoresis for myosin light chains, in particular the embryonic isoform, and was the first to separate human myosin heavy chain isoforms.

He discovered the long-term potential of denervated muscle to survive denervation by non-compensatory myofiber regeneration.

Prof. Carraro was Associate Professor of General Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Padova, from 1983 to 2013. Editor-in-Chief of The European Journal of Translational Myology since 1991, he founded and chaired from 2005 to 2011 Interdepartmental Research Center of Myology (CIR-Myo) of the University of Padova. CIR-Myo continue to join scientists and clinicians of the Departments of Biology, Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience, Medicine and Surgical Sciences, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Experimental & Clinical Veterinary Sciences.

In collaboration with international partners, in particular the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Electrostimulation and Physical Rehabilitation of the Wilheminenspital, Vienna, Austria, CIR-Myo scientists and clinicians developed and implemented the expertise and facilities to maintain and extend in Interreg IVa a world-unique BIO-BANK of human skeletal muscle biopsies harvested from upper motor neuron and lower motor neuron denervated patients and related animal research, young and senior sportsmen, healthy and diseased elderly persons before and during recovery by new therapies and rehabilitation strategies. In particular, muscle biopsies were harvested from patients affected with spinal cord injury and severe leg trauma, osteoarthropathies and rheumatic autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

CIR-Myo is developing also new imaging methods for functional monitoring of human skeletal muscles from patients suffering with permanent and transient muscle denervation. The collaboration with the Dr. Kern’s Vienna Group resulted in new knowledge and clinical validation of rehabilitation strategies for permanently denervated human muscles using home-based Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES). Thus, a world unique human muscle biopsies DATA-BASE of structural and molecular data obtained by histology, histo- and immuno-chemistry, electron microscopy and genomic/proteomic approaches is available to compare new rehabilitation strategies against standard clinical methods.

Carraro’s Lab matured expertises working on different aspects of muscle biology and pathology, including spinal cord injuries, aging, apoptosis, and muscle regeneration. This full set of methods and expertise are uniquely present at the CIR-Myo of Padova University, and well documented by a list of original results published in leading Journals of the different research fields.

Now Professor Carraro is validating NON-INVASIVE BLOOD ANALYSES to monitor Cytokines (anti- and pro- Inflammatory) and Myokines by saliva and sweat samplings, a very promising approach that will increase acceptability of sampling by volunteering persons and frequency of sampling, a key factor to evaluate the many very transient effects of trainings and rehabilitations in early aging and aging.

Publications

PUBMED April 12, 2020: Ugo Carraro 1973 - 2019 - References: 156 - Citations > 3000 –

h-index 44;  h-index 37, excluding self-citations

List of 10 recent publications 2020-2016

  1. Ricciardi C, Edmunds KJ, Recenti M, Sigurdsson S, Gudnason V, Carraro U, Gargiulo P. Assessing cardiovascular risks from a mid-thigh CT image: a tree-based machine learning approach using radiodensitometric distributions. Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 18;10(1):2863. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-59873-9. PMID: 32071412
  2. Carraro U. 2020PMD, 30-years of Translational Mobility Medicine at the time of COVID-19 outbreak: Last-minute forewords from the editor. Eur J Transl Myol 2020;30:8966. Doi 10.4081/ejtm.2019.8966.
  3. Albertin G, Ravara B, Kern H, Hofer C, Loefler S, Jurecka W, Guidolin D, Rambaldo A, Porzionato A, De Caro R, Zampieri S, Pond A, Alaibac M, Carraro U. Two-years of home based functional electrical stimulation recovers epidermis from atrophy and flattening after years of complete Conus-Cauda Syndrome. Medicine (Baltimore). 2019 Dec;98(52):e18509. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000018509. PMID: 31876739.
  4. Kern H, Gargiulo P, Pond A, Albertin G, Marcante A, Carraro U. To Reverse Atrophy of Human Muscles in Complete SCI Lower Motor Neuron Denervation by Home-Based Functional Electrical Stimulation. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2018;1088:585-591. doi: 10.1007/978-981-13-1435-3_27.
  5. Carraro U, Gava K, Baba A, Marcante A, Piccione F. To Contrast and Reverse Skeletal Muscle Atrophy by Full-Body In-Bed Gym, a Mandatory Lifestyle for Older Olds and Borderline Mobility-Impaired Persons. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2018;1088:549-560. doi: 10.1007/978-981-13-1435-3_25. Review.
  6. Carraro U. Exciting perspectives for Translational Myology in the Abstracts of the 2018Spring PaduaMuscleDays: Giovanni Salviati Memorial - Chapter I - Foreword. Eur J Transl Myol. 2018 Feb 20;28(1):7363. doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2018.7363. eCollection 2018 Jan 12.
  7. Mosole S, Zampieri S, Furlan S, Carraro U, Löefler S, Kern H, Volpe P, Nori A. Effects of Electrical Stimulation on Skeletal Muscle of Old Sedentary People. Gerontol Geriatr Med. 2018 Apr 10;4:2333721418768998. doi: 10.1177/2333721418768998. eCollection 2018 Jan-Dec.
  8. Edmunds K, Gíslason M, Sigurðsson S, Guðnason V, Harris T, Carraro U, Gargiulo P. Advanced quantitative methods in correlating sarcopenic muscle degeneration with lower extremity function biometrics and comorbidities. PLoS One. 2018 Mar 7;13(3):e0193241. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0193241. eCollection 2018.
  9. Atrophy, ultra-structural disorders, severe atrophy and degeneration of denervated human muscle in SCI and Kern H, Hofer C, Loefler S, Zampieri S, Gargiulo P, Baba A, Marcante A, Piccione F, Pond A, Carraro U. Aging. Implications for their recovery by Functional Electrical Stimulation, updated 2017. Neurol Res. 2017 Jul;39(7):660-666. doi: 10.1080/01616412.2017.1314906. Epub 2017 Apr 13. Review.
  10. Edmunds KJ, Árnadóttir Í, Gíslason MK, Carraro U, Gargiulo P. Nonlinear Trimodal Regression Analysis of Radiodensitometric Distributions to Quantify Sarcopenic and Sequelae Muscle Degeneration. Comput Math Methods Med. 2016;2016:8932950. doi: 10.1155/2016/8932950. Epub 2016 Dec 27.

 

Carraro, U., Kern, H., & Albertin, G. (2021). Paolo Gava, a professional engineer, who has become a Master athlete, an amateur scientist and a lifelong friend. European Journal of Translational Myology, 31(4). https://doi.org/10.4081/ejtm.2021.10260

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