For this purpose, the consortium gathered leading academic institutions in the field of biomedical sciences.
IMC.
IP: Dr. Eiva Bernotiene
Dr. Eiva Bernotiene (E.B.) is the chief researcher and Head of the Department of Regenerative Medicine at IMC, Associate Professor at VilniusTech University, and is a Lithuanian representative of Horizon EU Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), is a leader and PI of IMC in several high level European projects.
CINBIO.
IP: Dr. María Mayan
Dr. Mayán leads a team of 21 members at INIBIC and now at CINBIO including researchers and medical doctors from the breast cancer unit of the hospital. She has been involved in several technology transfer activities and she is collaborating with different pharma and biotech companies. Her ultimate aim is performing research that can be translated into products for the benefit of patients. Her career has been developed in different institutions, the USC (DEA), CIB-Margarita Salas (PhD), Imperial College and MRC-LMS (Postdoc), INIBIC (PI) and CINBIO (PI). Dr. Mayán has moved into different research areas and made relevant scientific contributions in all stages. Since 2010, Mayán´s career is based on contributing to fundamental questions to understand the role of connexins and cellular communication mediated by connexins in tissue regeneration and cancer. The results published by her team have been internationally recognized in the research community being regularly invited as keynote speaker and organizer of (inter)-national conferences. She has recently received the “Francisco Guitián Ojea” Award from the Galician Royal Academy of Sciences for her research in oncology. Her group has discovered that chondrocytes in articular cartilage are connected by long cytoplasmic projections and cell-to-cell communication occurs via gap junctions formed by connexins. She has demonstrated that the overactivity of Cx43 since early stages of the disease is involved in inflammation and osteoarthritis (OA) progression, finding a new therapeutic target for the treatment of OA. These results have been recognized by the Spanish Society of Rheumatology with 2 awards in two different panels. Along this line, she has registered two international patents with innovative therapeutic strategies that would be further explored in this project.
UCD.
IP: Prof. Margaret Mc Gee.
Prof. Mc Gee is an international leader in translational research and EVs biology and has established innovative approaches to EV isolation, purification and characterization for multi-omic biomarker discovery and implementation of liquid biopsies. Over the past 15 years Prof. Mc Gee has led interdisciplinary translational research projects involving biomedical and computational researchers, clinicians, patient representativesand industry partners. Prof. Mc Gee who is currently Head of Research, Innovation and Impact in UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science has worked with Pfizer and global diagnostic company Randox for the translational development of novel biotherapeutics and EV-based liquid biopsies. Researchers under her mentorship have secured employment in international academic institutes and global pharmaceutical industry. Her group currently leads two successful interdisciplinary networks across Europe therefore bringing valuable expertise in project management and administration. UCD Conway Institute, also holds an international reputation in cytometry excellence, and is recognised as a national centre for cytometry research and training in Ireland. Since its inception in 2004, the Conway Flow Cytometry facility is Directed by Dr. Blanco who is a world leader in cytometry applications across the Life Sciences and has published more than 40 papers in high-citation index (Web of Science), some of which belong to the prestigious Nature journal. Dr. Blanco organises cytometry education and training that is attended by national and international researchers. He is founder and co-Director of Cytometry Society of Ireland (CSI), Chair of ISAC Membership Committee and Chair of ISAC Instruments4Science Task Force and member of 4 other Task Forces and committees of the International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC), coordinator of Red Iberoamericana de Citometría and a member of the European Society for Clinical Cell Analysis (ESCCA). Building on this expertise and reputation, UCD is an international Reference Site for Beckman Coulter and is involved in state-of-the-art instrument development and reagent validation. The Conway Institute Cytometry under the Directorship of Dr. Blanco is also a reference site for Accuri, BD Bioscience, ThermoFisher, BioRad, BioStatus, DeNovo Software, ImmunoStep. This relationship provides unique opportunities for the research community to access new technologies and reagents and provides a collaborative open science environment enabling research and innovation across academia and industry. Bespoke training sessions for EV purification and characterisation will be established and run by our team.