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Written by Super User

Category: Lab Blog

Published: 14 April 2019

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NEWSLETTER JAN-MAR 2019

Volume 2 / Issue 5

THREE PAPERS PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST QUARTER

1. NOX4 is a major regulator of cord blood-derived endothelial colony-forming cells which promotes postischaemic revascularisation.O'Neill KM, Campbell DC, Edgar KS, Gill EK, Moez A, McLoughlin KJ, O'Neill CL, Dellett M, Hargey CJ, Abudalo RA, O'Hare M, Doyle P, Toh T, Khoo J, Wong J, McCrudden CM, Meloni M, Brunssen C, Morawietz H, Yoder MC, Watson CJ, Stitt AW, Margariti A, Medina RJ, Grieve DJ. Cardiovasc Res.2019 Apr 1. pii: cvz090. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvz090. [Epub ahead of print] PMID:30937452
2. Selection of a Real-Time PCR Housekeeping Gene Panel in Human Endothelial Colony Forming Cells for Cellular Senescence Studies.McLoughlin KJ, Pedrini E, MacMahon M, Guduric-Fuchs J, Medina RJ. Front Med (Lausanne). 2019 Mar 11;6:33. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2019.00033. eCollection 2019.PMID:30915334 
3. The vasoreparative potential of endothelial colony-forming cells in the ischemic retina is enhanced by cibinetide, a non-hematopoietic erythropoietin mimetic.O'Leary OE, Canning P, Reid E, Bertelli PM, McKeown S, Brines M, Cerami A, Du X, Xu H, Chen M, Brazil DP, Medina RJ, Stitt AW. Exp Eye Res.2019 Mar 12. pii: S0014-4835(18)30645-6. doi: 10.1016/j.exer.2019.03.001. [Epub ahead of print] PMID:30876881

THREE NEW PROJECTS FUNDED

1. Medical Research Council MRC PROJECT GRANT £210K for two years. Human blood-derived endothelial colony forming cells as a new cell therapy for chronic non-healing wounds.
2. INNOVATE UK PROJECT GRANT £300K for one year. A novel vascular stem cell product ANGICYTE for regenerative medicine.
3. Medical Research Council MRC Confidence-in-concept PROJECT GRANT £70K for one year. A novel drug discovery assay for angiogenesis using vascular stem cells.

STUDENTS

We have a visiting PhD student from Spain (IDIVAL). Miss Veronica Pulito Cueto is visiting our labs to learn basic endothelial progenitor cell biology.

Well done to our PhD students! Lydia for submitting her thesis; Kiran and Pietro for having successful APR interviews.

AWARDS

Pietro received a travel award from the National Eye Research Centre to attend the European Vascular Biology Meeting 2019 in Maastricht.

OTHER EVENTS

• Reinhold attended a Regenerative Medicine Networking Event in Stockholm organized by INNOVA Sweden.
• Christina presented a pitch for VASCVERSA in Liverpool to potential investors.

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Written by Super User

Category: Lab Blog

Published: 24 August 2018

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FOUR SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS

1. International Vascular Biology Meeting (IVBM) in Helsinki (June 3-7). Elisa and Jasenka presented our research at IVBM-Helsinki.
2. International Society for Thrombosis and Hemostasis (ISTH) in Dublin (July 18-21). Reinhold was the guest speaker for the scientific session on endothelial progenitor cells at ISTH 2018.
3. 4th Conference on Impedence-Based Cellular Assays (IBCA) in Edinburgh (June 6-8). Christina gave a talk on session 6: Tissue Barrier and Filter Based Assays.
4. European Association for the Study of Diabetes Eye Complications (EASDEC) in Belfast (May 24-26). Alan was the speaker for the closing plenary session at EASDEC 2018.

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT IN KIDNEY INTERNATIONAL - AUGUST ISSUE

Sarah's recent paper published in the Stem Cells Journal was highlighted on the journal Kidney International due to its further implications and relevance for diabetic renal disease and the development of post-transplant diabetes.

ICURE INNOVATE UK AWARD

Christina and Reinhold have been awarded a competitive grant to explore commercialisation pathways for our research as part of the ICURe programme (Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research). They will be working closely with Dr Alex Chacko (Technical Transfer Officer) and Dr John Fox (Business Advisor).

FAREWELL TO JOANA, KENTA, AND YOSHINORI

 Kenta and Yoshinori returned to Japan where they will continue with their medical studies. Joana moved to Copenhagen where she was offered a postdoctoral research position.

TRAVEL AWARD FROM STEM CELL TECHNOLOGIES

Well done to Christina for obtaining a travel award from Stem Cell Technologies.

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Written by Super User

Category: Lab Blog

Published: 17 December 2018

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TWO SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS

1. International Society for Eye Research (ISER) in Belfast (September 9-13). There were presentations from Pietro, Stuart, Varun, Judith, Reinhold, Sarah, and Alan.

https://www.react-profile.org/upload/KIT/system/uploads/40_ISER%202018_Final%20Program.pdf

2. QUB Regenerative Medicine Grouping (REMERGE) in Belfast (October 1st). Reinhold was among the guest speakers for REMERGE 2018.

PAPER PUBLISHED IN FRONTIERS

Paper recently accepted in Frontiers in Medicine 

 The Vasoreparative Potential of Endothelial Colony Forming Cells: A Journey Through Pre-clinical Studies.

O'Neill CL, McLoughlin KJ, Chambers SEJ, Guduric-Fuchs J, Stitt AW, Medina RJ.

Front Med (Lausanne). 2018 Oct 16;5:273. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2018.00273. PMID: 30460233

AWARDS

After a long and difficult journey, Christina, Alex, John, and Reinhold have been successful in the ICURe programme (Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research). Our project was one of the few winners that will be supported for the generation of a spin-out company. Exciting news but more hard work expected.

Reinhold was awarded £10K from Faculty to expand Jasenka’s miRNA work

OTHER EVENTS

• Reinhold chaired a Horizon 2020 Regenerative Medicine Networking event at Invest Northern Ireland (Sep 11^th).
• Reinhold contributed to the University Staff Development Course on Project Management (Sep 27^th).
• We had our Annual Research Away Day at the Titanic Hotel (Nov 30^th).

STUDENTS

Welcome to Daniel, our new PhD student. We also had a visiting scientist from Brazil UNICAMP, Miss Leticia Queiroz da Silva, who is also starting a PhD. Good luck with your studies!

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Written by Super User

Category: Lab Blog

Published: 22 May 2018

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NEWSLETTER Mar-May 2018

Volume 1 / Issue 2

PINT OF SCIENCE 2018 (May 15)

Sarah gave an outstanding talk explaining about stem cell therapies and our research at Queen’s University Belfast. This is the first ‘Pint of Science’ event in Belfast. Pint of Science is an annual science festival that takes place every May and brings researchers to a local pub to present their scientific discoveries. This public event took place in Belfast Black Box and the theme was ‘SEEING INTO THE FUTURE:Global blindness is set to triple by 2050. Our growing ageing population, unhealthy lifestyle choices and genetics are behind the numbers. What are we doing in the Fight for Sight?’ This event was run with Fight For Sight, and proceeds from ticket sales will go to Fight For Sight.

Presentations at ARVO 2018 in Hawaii (APR 29 – May 3)

Pietro and Stuart attended ARVO annual meeting 2018 in Honolulu, Hawaii. This is the biggest international conference for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. There were over 11,000 international basic and clinical researchers sharing the latest breakthroughs in vision research. The poster presentations given by Pietro and Stuart attracted a lot of attention from peers.

Collaborative work with King’s college london (APR 25 – APR 29)

Sarah visited King’s College London for collaborative research work with Dr Modarai’s team. We thank Bijan, Francesca, and Ashish for hosting Sarah in their lab.

Welcome to visiting Japanese Scientists

This is the third year our research group is hosting medical students from the Medical School at Okayama University, Japan. Kenta Tsuchida and Yoshinori Nishiura arrived to Belfast on May 5th, and will be with us for the next 3 months. This visit is not only a learning experience for the students, but also enhances the Internationalisation strategy at Queen’s University Belfast.

BSc Honours students

Our research group hosted two undergraduate students, Ms Aileen Burke and Mr Daniel Hsu Wen See. They were co-supervised by Jasenka and Elisa, respectively. Well done with their final oral presentations and good luck in their future careers!