RETORNA activities – September 2024

Back at work!

After some well-deserved holidays where our DCs and PIs could relax and enjoy quality time with their families, all the RETORNA Consortium has started September with energy and full agenda!!!

Below we are sharing with you some of the activities and events in which our DCs and PIs were involved during  September 2024:

 

1 year PhD

First of all we are delighted to inform you that during the month of September we had 4 celebrations in our Consortium, as Maria Eduarda, Nathalie, Ceren and Enola reached 1 year since they enrolled in the RETORNA Phd program!!!

 

DC1: Maria Eduarda’s secondment in Germany

Maria Eduarda, our DC1, started September with a flight trip that took her to Tubingen, Germany. She landed at our partner Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen where she started her secondment.  Prof. Schnichels and his team welcomed and received her in their lab, were she could learn new techniques with the help of her new German team. Read her testimony here.

DC8: 1 week training on gene editing

During the month of September Ceren spent 1 week in Aarhus, Denmark at Aarhus University where she attended  a training focused on clinical applications of gene editing methods, with a particular focus on delivery systems, especially CRISPR systems.

The event was organized in collaboration with COST Association – European Cooperation in Science and Technology and GeneHumdi.

 

DC4, DC8 and DC10: European Researchers’ Night

In Alicante, Spain

This is the second year in which Enola – DC4 and Ceren – DC8 participate in the organization of the European event “European Researchers’ Night”. Universidad de Alicante is partner of the Horizon Europe project Science goes to school.

Cuenca lab team organized also this year a large number of activities related to vision science dedicated to all ages. The aim was to show to the wide public their research through non formal activities. Thanks to the collaboration and participation of patients from Asociation Retina Comunidad Valenciana it was possible to raise awareness among the public about different retinal diseases and patients’ difficulties.

 

 

In Valencia, Spain

Also within the Universidad Católica de Valencia all sort of activities were organized during the day of 27th of September 2024 within the “European Researchers’ Night 2024” with the support of the Vicerrector of Research.

The research group lead by PI Javier Sancho and PI Jorge Barcia welcomed the public to the sesion “Misterios de la Retina: Viaje a través de la ceguera” (“Mysteries of the retina: Journey through blindness”). A lot of mysteries related to the retina were revealed by our researchers Miriam, Maria and Chiara DC10.

The event continued with the intervention of the rehabilitation technician Pablo from ONCE . Pablo introduced us to the different types of visual field depending on the type of retinal diseases and gave us important tips on how to behave when meeting people with low vision or blind.

DC5: Ioannis at EuroQSAR Barcelona 2024

This September Ioannis DC5 traveled to Barcelona, Spain together with his PI Prof. Serdar Durdagi and the rest of his lab team. They all participated to the 24th European Symposium on Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship that took place from the 22nd to the 26th of September 2024.

Ioannis not only attended interesting sessions every day, but also presented his research through the poster prepared at stand nr. 181 entitled “Genetic Algorithm-Enhanced RNA Aptamer Discovery for Targeted Retinal Degeneration Therapy”.

World Retina Day

September was indeed a month full of activities for our Consortium and some of them have been resumed in this article.

The month finished with the celebration of the World Retina Day during the last Sunday of the month!

All these activities and events, together with the constant and daily engagement of our Consortium, has the aim to give visibility to the retinal diseases and the research findings in the field, remembering always that the final objective is improving the health situation of the patients.

 

October also comes with a lot of interesting events and important days to save and celebrate!

Greetings,

RETORNA team