Fianly, EVs and MS laboratory could participate in a face-to-face meting. We went to Ciocco Resort close to Barga for the 2nd EVIta Symposium in 20-22nd of September 2021. It was a great occasion to immerse in the extracellular vesicle world in the heart of the fascinating Serchio Valley, a mysterious part of Tuscany with a fantastic view. There were more than 150 participants!
At the pre meeting on September the 20th, Dr. Gabriella Pocsvalvi showcased two of our latest international projects, greenEV and mEVChip. Dr. Mannea Moubarak from Damanhur University, Egypt, has been working in our group for two years on greenEV, focusing on the innovative production of extracellular vesicles from plant cells. The project is funded by the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action. In the mEVChip project, we aim to develop a microfluidic chip to assess the anti-inflammatory effect of ginger derived extracellular vesicles in cells with the collaboration of CINVESTAV. This project is financed by the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute of the United Mexican States (Cinvestav) and the National Research Council of Italy (CNR).
On September 21st, Ramila Mammadova, Ph.D. student at EVs and MS laboratory gave a talk on the “Identification of viral particles copurifying with tomato-derived nanovesicles by shotgun proteomics”, as part of the oral presentation program. She reported one of our latest findings on how we identified different tomato viruses in nanovesicles samples. This piece of research is the continuation of our recently published work on tomato fruit NVs.
On September 21st, Ana Paulina Ramos Juarez, Ph.D. student at EVs and MS laboratory, presented our work on the topic of biomarker discovery using plasma-derived EVs in the poster section. The poster is entitled “Optimization of gradient ultracentrifugation for the isolation of different subpopulations of extracellular vesicles from plasma”. Since the isolation of plasma EVs is very tricky, there was a big interest in this presentation. Please download the poster from here.
On September 22nd Dr. Gabriella Pocsvalvi had the opportunity to chair the session “EV biomarkers and therapeutics” where different groups from all over the country showed their latest findings on this topic.
These were busy days full of interesting information and novel topics. We were pleased to see so much interest in the field we are involved and the willingness of all to collaborate in advancing it. For Ramila, it was the first time that she talked in front of such a big audience. We are glad to had this opportunity to meeting in person with colleges from Italy and abroad. A special thanks to the organizers of the event, EVIta committee and the world-renowned scientists who presented keynote lectures and shared with us their knowledge and the staff for taking care of everything. We hope to meet all again soon and stay tuned to our news for more information.