2017

  • On Friday 10 February Roberta Freezor and Sheelagh Heugh hosted the London Extracellular Vesicles (EV) group meeting.

  • London Met is hosting our Biochemical Society sponsored meeting on 14 and 15 September 2017.

2016

  • Professor Inal chaired a session entitled Extracellular Vesicles in Tumor metastasis at ISEV 2016, the fifth meeting of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles meeting in Rotterdam, 4 to 7 May.

  • Dr Mark Gallagher joined CMIRC as a post-doc working on the EveStemInjury EU-funded project studying stem cell microvesicles in acute organ injury.

  • Dr Sharad Kholia has been seconded to the Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Biotechnology Center, University of Turin, Turin, Italy to work in Professor Camussi’s lab as part of the EveStemInjury EU-funded project.

2015

  • On 22 September, Dr Ahmad Haidery successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled: The Role of Microvesicles in Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition in Prostate Cancer. Also during September, Professor Zheng from Nanfang Hospital visited CMIRC once more.

  • In June, Colin Moore started a second period as a visiting researcher at CMIRC.

  • Catarina Lourenco joined CMIRC at the beginning of February and will be working as an intern until the end of April. Catarina is on an Erasmus Placement from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon, where she is a Masters student in Pharmacology.

  • In January CMIRC was pleased to welcome Dona Manaperuma onto the PhD programme at CMIRC working on the role of EVs in cancer metastasis. Professor Lei Zheng from the Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, visited the Centre during January.

2014

  • In April, CMIRC presented data at the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) in Rotterdam on the use of the Quartz Crystal Microbalance to make real-time measurements of microvesicle release from cells and of deposited MVs. The outline of the EU consortium of which CMIRC is a member to study stem cell MVs was also outlined.

  • On the 31 July, Sharad Kholia successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled: The Biogenesis of Prostate Cancer Microvesicles and their Dysfunctional Role on Dendritic Cell Biology.

  • In September, Uchini Kosgodage started her PhD working on the use of EVs as drug delivery vehicles.

2013

  • CMIRC extends a warm welcome to Saram Azam and Enakaru Osula who have both started their PhDs on microvesicles and prostate cancer and to Prabin Rai and Uchini Kosgodage who have arrived as visitors until the autumn.

  • Professor Jameel Inal (CMIRC) as part of a consortium including Fresenius Medical Care, University of Utrecht and University of Barcelona have received €1.25 million (€260K to CMIRC) to study extracellular vesicles from adult stem cells in the regeneration of organ injury. 

  • A warm welcome to three visitors to CMIRC, Dr Franco Manesis MD, Sarah Azam MSc and Marta Salvado who joined the centre in October.

  • In June, £54,216 was awarded to Dr Gary McLean (together with Seb Johnston [Imperial] and Jameel Inal [London Met] as co-applicants) from the Dunhill Medical Trust to fund a project entitled The Role of Microvesicles in the Spread of Rhinovirus Infections. Featured in FLSC Newsletter October 2013

  • Second meeting of ISEV, Boston, April, 2013. CMIRC presents four abstracts on microvesicles in tumour growth, epithelial mesenchymal transition, in the spread of Coxsackie virus and in microvesicle generation using extremely low field electromagnetic waves.

  • Press release on scientists in CMIRC improving the odds of chemotherapy success (Date 11/03/13)

  • Congratulations to Dr Dan Stratton who was awarded his PhD on 7 February for his thesis entitled: Biochemical and Physiological Analysis of Microvesicle Subtypes

  • PhD student Dan Stratton wins prize from ImmunoTools.de for his project on the Biochemical and Physiological roles of microvesicles. 

  • Professor J Inal gives talks entitled Microvesicles in Infection and Cancer at the Medway School of Pharmacy, University of Kent (23/01/13) and University of East London (06/03/13)

  • CMRIC research featured in FLSC Newsletter January CMIRC Feature .

2012

  • Congratulations to Dr Samireh Jorfi who was awarded her PhD on the 26 November for her thesis entitled: The Role of Microvesicles in Cancer and Viral Infection.

  • Microvesiculation and Disease conference at London Met, 13-14 September. This highly successful meeting brought together key researchers in the extracellular vesicle field looking at the roles of microvesicle and exosomes in various models of disease.
    Meeting Report by Ray Schiffelers in J. Extracell.
    Vesicles: Newsletter article (PDF):Microvesiculation and Disease conference

  • Inaugural meeting of ISEV in Gothenburg, April 2012. Dr Dan Stratton gave the third talk on the first day of the conference on the physical and biological properties of constitutively released microvesicles and those released upon stimulation. Ryan Grant and Professor Jameel Inal presented posters on MV isolation techniques and the role of host MVs in parasite infection.

2011

  • The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles was founded in September 2011, and members of CMIRC were amongst the 500 founding members.

  • Professor Marcel Ramirez, Dr Ingrid Evans-Osses and two PhD students (Leandro and Denise) visit CMIRC, December 2011 to end January 2012. This visit is to start a new collaboration relating parasite infection, host microvesicles and complement inhibition.

  • CMIRC warmly welcomes Dr Ahmad zia Haidery MD (PhD student) and Ryan Grant (VC stipendary scholarship PhD student) Ahmad and Ryan will be working on various roles of microvesicles in cancer immunology. Special congratulations to Ryan who won one of only three such scholarships offered across the whole university.

  • Congratulations to PhD students Ephraim Ansa-Addo and Samuel Antwi-Baffour who were awarded their PhDs on the 26 and 29 November, 2010, respectively.

  • Professor J Inal awarded Best Poster Prize for poster entitled Plasma Membrane-derived Vesicles carry TGF-β1 and Promote Adhesion and Differentiation of THP-1 Monocytes to Macrophages at Euroscicon meeting Flow Cytometry Instrumentation and techniques; Keeping up with the Changes. 19 November.

  • PhD student Ephraim Ansa-Addo to be given an AAI trainee award having been selected to give an oral presentation at the forthcoming 97th American Association for Immunologists meeting in Baltimore, May 2010.
  • PhD student Ephraim Ansa-Addo selected to present work at SET for Britain, 2010 in House of Commons. In March 2010, Ephraim is one of 60 selected to present his work for his research discovery in the biological sciences.

  • CMIRC welcomes Samireh Jorfi (PhD student) and Sharad Kholia (VC scholarship PhD student) Samireh has recently joined CMIRC and will be conducting a project looking at PMVs in relation to Coxsackie virus infection and NK-mediated cytotoxicity. Sharad will be working from March on intercellular communication using PMVs in relation to cancer.

  • Second postgraduate students symposium, February 2010. Ephraim won first prize for his talk on parasite-mediated PMV release and infection.

  • Professor Jameel Inal is elected Fellow of the Institute of Biology. After two-and-a-half years as a member of the Institute of Biology (MBiol), in February, Jameel was invited to become a Fellow of the Institute, in recognition of his work in immunology. We are pleased to announce that in March 2009, the Council of the Institute of Biology elected Jameel as a Fellow.

  • CMIRC welcomes two molecular parasitologists (associate members of CMIRC) from the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil. Professor Marcel Ramirez and Dr Ingrid Evans-Osses are on a Royal Society-funded visit working in the Centre on projects to (i) further decipher the mechanisms by which Trypanosoma cruzi inhibits the lectin pathway of complement activation; (ii) investigate whether Giardia intestinalis can activate host complement by binding various lectins (iii) characterize plasma membrane vesiculation from human intestinal epithelial cells stimulated by G. intestinalis and from the parasite itself upon deposition of sublytic complement.

  • This follows on from a year-long visit to CMIRC by Igor dos Santos Cestari who received a highly prestigious Brazilian Ministry of Education Fellowship – CAPES. This extremely productive period is now culminating in a raft of papers that focuses on microvesicles and infection by intracellular parasites/bacteria.