Copy
ESCI Newsletter - Number 38 - November 2021 



Dear ESCI Members,
dear friends,

When I took office as ESCI president in the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society in Coimbra, I was informed that, according to the statutes, my tenure as President could only last for two years, and I would then reach a maximum of eights years in the ESCI Council. Because of the covid-19 epidemic, I agreed to stay one more full year, reaching a total of three years as ESCI president, ending in the annual meeting in Bari in 2022. 

After validation from the Society Trust, I was informed that I could have stayed the four whole years as the statutes allow. Still and as initially planned, I would like to announce to the Council that I will not do so, and I will officially be stepping down as ESCI President in June 2022, during our Annual meeting

I have had an enormous dedication to ESCI since I started as Councillor and then as Vice-President and President. I have organized the "Mitochondria in Health and Disease" symposium every year since the Budapest annual meeting, which means over 10 years by now. I also collaborated with Presidents Portincasa and Nathoe to implement wise decisions that allowed for the solid Society we have now and for better and better annual meetings. At the same time, I have contributed to the European Journal of Clinical Investigation (EJCI), as a reviewer, contributor, and organizer of three special issues, two already published and one in progress.

Thanks to an extraordinary group of Councillors that I worked and I am working with while President, we were able to implement a series of activities, unlikely any in the past, namely:

  • Implementing new ESCI fellowships and prizes.
  • Introducing new symposia related with bioinformatics or stem cells.
  • Creating the young researchers council, which will significantly help ESCI move to new heights.
  • Increase communication with members using regular newsletters.
  • Creating new procedures for the Central Office in its interactions with members.
  • Give the new EJCI editor-in-chief and editorial board support to increase the journal's impact factor.
  • Change two physical meetings to fully remote, with a substantial number of registrations and excellent scientific programs. 
  • Improve the visibility of the Society by creating new channels, e.g. social media.
  • Lobby with the European Researcher's Council to increase the requisites for clinicians in their applications for ERC grants (although this was not successful)
  • Increase the periodicity of meetings within the Council.

This list of achievements was only possible due to the motivation, dynamics, and generosity of the group of Councillors I was honored to preside. The activities were also made possible by the Trust support, which always aimed to improve ESCI activities. ESCI members and non-members were instrumental by registering to our meetings and participating in our calls for awards.

The mission is never accomplished because there is always a lot to be done to improve our Society but I feel comfortable that I implemented most of my ideas and that success is rolling safely. I strongly feel that it is now time for others to take the helm and give the Society a new touch. 

Because I am stepping down one year earlier than the end of my official mandate, the current Vice-President Voahanginirina Randriamboavonjy will be the next ESCI President until the annual meeting in 2023 to cover the year I should be presiding. I am sure she will do an outstanding job giving her powerful impassioned touch and vision.

For the next President (2023-2027), the Council internally voted for Gemma Vilahur, based on her solid experience with multiple Societies and groups and her drive and commitment to work. The Council has also internally voted on councilor Nahid Tabibzadeh for the next Vice-President (2022-2024) to fill in the vice-presidency slot. I am sure Nahid will be a very enthusiastic and dynamic Vice-President.

The Council has also decided to vote for including three new Councillors that will help grow the Society. You can confirm in their bios below that these are three very active individuals and outstanding researchers. Dr. Mariusz Wieckowski (Warsaw, Poland), Dr. Paula Macedo (Lisbon, Portugal) and Dr. Leonilde Bonfrate (Bari, Italy). 

ESCI members (meaning you) will be requested to formally vote for accepting the new President Gemma Vilahur (2023-2027), the new Vice-President Nahid Tabibzadeh (2022-2024), and the three new Councillors. I hope you can agree with me that all of them will be tremendously important for the Society. 

I also would like to mention that the last ESCI Council meeting in Bari was the first one in which the Young Researchers Council was present. This group of young researchers resulted from a new ESCI initiative and will bring aboard the Society a group of young and enthusiastic fundamental and clinical researchers that will help the Society organize new initiatives and reach new members.

I plan to be close to witnessing ESCI grow and will be available to help when needed. I was informed by the Trust that I can stay for one year (2022-2023) as Past-President in the Council. I still think whether that will be useful for the Society and will decide in due time.

Although there is still much work to be done until the Meeting in Bari in June 2022, I would like to say it was an honor to be ESCI President and meet many of the members during our meetings. What a great group we make. Again, a final word for all the ESCI Councillors who are a fantastic group of people and for the Editors and Editorial Board of the European Journal for Clinical Investigation for their work in improving the journal. Please consider pubishing in our flagship journal your best work.

We will still do great things together and as I always say in each meeting, “let us make make new friends”.

All the best


Paulo J. Oliveira,
ESCI President

 

Prospective New Councillor


Dr. Maria Paula Macedo

(Lisbon, Portugal)
 

Paula Macedo is currently Professor at the NOVA Medical School, NOVA University in Lisboa, Portugal. Professor Macedo, significant contributions include studies on the impairment of the autonomic nervous system on glucose and lipid metabolism, genetics and environmental factors controlling insulin clearance and insulin resistance, and the role of gut-brain-liver axis focusing on NAFLD. Professor Macedo has been devoted to the promotion of Diabetes in Portugal and abroad,  of highlith, the genesis within the Portuguese Diabetes Society for the national research network in the diabetes field and she has been enrolled in the organization of international meetings in this field.  Presently she belongs to the stereering committee of the NAFLD- European Society for the Study of Diabetes, is Member of the Pedagogic Council in Universidade Nova de Lisboa Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Coordinator of APDP - Education and Research Center in Associacao Protectora dos Diabeticos de Portugal, Member of the Direction in Associacao Protectora dos Diabeticos de Portugal, Direction of Sociedade Portuguesa de Diabetologia, and Vice-President in Fundação Ernesto Roma.


Dr. Mariusz Wieckowski

(Warsaw, Poland)
 

Prof. Mariusz R. Wieckowski (born 12.09.1972) recently is a head of the Laboratory of Mitochondrial Biology and Metabolism at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He has over 16 years of experience in mitochondrial metabolism research. In 1995, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the University of Warsaw with a Master of Science and next in 1999 completed his PhD at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology focusing on the role of mitochondrial permeability transition pore in the uncoupling of the oxidative phosphorylation. In 2002, he joined the prof. R. Rizzuto’s Laboratory at the University of Ferrara where, as a postdoctoral fellow he began studies on the close interactions between endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. In 2007, he came back to Poland where in 2016 he was awarded the title of full Professor of Biological Sciences. 

His recent research is focused on different aspects of intracellular oxidative stress (e.g., in the context of mitochondrial disorders) and resolving the issue how does mitochondrial dysfunction affect mitochondrial and cellular function. Moreover, he is investigating the relations between mitochondrial energetic and oxidative stress in tumours as well as pharmacological toxicity to mitochondria. Recently, within the frame of two Horizon 2020 projects he is working on the role of mitochondria and oxidative stress in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease development and progression. 

Prof. Wieckowski is an author / co-author of over 170 publications in refereed journals (as Science, Nature Protocols, PNAS, Nature Reviews Cardiology, Biological Reviews, Science Advances, EMBO Reports, Cell Reports, etc.) which were cited more than 9000 times (H-index = 53, cumulative IF > 780).

 

 


Dr. Leonilde Bonfrate

(Bari, Italy)
 

Leonilde Bonfrate is an assistant professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Bari, Italy.
Since the beginning of her career, she thought that be a physician was a privilege in her life and she decided to improve the health of people everywhere by assuming the responsibility to take care of patients. A great enthusiasm characterized her education and moved towards an increasing improvement of clinical and science goals to achieve excellence in medicine, education, and clinical care. During the residency program in Internal Medicine she became involved with research in metabolic, gastrointestinal and liver disorders to acquire innovative medical care of the highest quality to patients. Following the PhD programme, she has been dedicated to the role of nutrition in health and in disorders as well as to the role of intestinal microbiota. 
Actually, she performs her research activity at the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology at the University of Bari. 
She learned a great lesson from the dramatical COVID-19 experience. Fresh and continuous new efforts are mandatory to improve the knowledge and quality of research and practice, in relation also to pandemic events worldwide. Moreover, the burden of diseases is different according to sex and gender. For these reasons, she decided to strongly commit herself to the sex and gender impact in health and diseases.
The great attitude of Leonilde Bonfrate to work productively within groups, to emphasize international scientific collaboration, and to motivate young researchers to scientific achievements aligns with the aims of the European Society for Clinical Investigation. 
As councillor of ESCI, Leonilde Bonfrate would like to stress the growth of biomedicine and gender medicine as well as the promotion of translational research for clinical application, and would like to involve more and more young investigators. 
 
 


ESCI YOUNG RESEARCHERS COUNCIL


Patrícia Afonso-Mendes 

(Coimbra, Portugal)
 

Patrícia Afonso-Mendes is a 34 years old, Internal Medicine Attending physician born in Coimbra – Portugal. She works in Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra and is also an Invited Assistant Teacher in Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Coimbra. She has a Master’s degree in Medicine since 2011 with the thesis “Abuse of methamphetamine and consequent abnormalities in human glial cells”. 
Patricia is a PhD student since 2018 researching about atrial fibrillation and sepsis. Aa an Internal Medicine physician, she differentiated in the area of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk, and she is also working in the area of critically ill care.
She is a Member of the Board of the Portuguese Atherosclerosis Society. Patricia has 6 articles/book chapters as first author and over 15 as co-author in medical journals and books. She was also a co-investigator of 5 studies (about nutrition, diabetes and dyslipidemia) and enjoys organizing courses and symposia.
 


Deeksha Malhan 

 

My expertise is in the area of computational biology. I have studied the process of bone fracture healing during my doctoral thesis at the Experimental Trauma Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Justus-Liebig-University, Gießen, Germany. Besides my doctoral thesis, I worked on different pre-clinical studies focused on unraveling the complexity of skeletal diseases like osteoporosis. I earned my PhD in Medicine with summa cum laude in 2019. The wet lab and dry lab training during my PhD provided me with an interdisciplinary experience. Moreover, I gained teaching experience by mentoring medical students in their projects.
Circadian rhythm lies in the middle of several different human diseases. Therefore, I decided to carry out my Post-doctoral work in the Systems Biology of Cancer group at Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany.  I am currently working on deciphering the cross-talk between circadian clock and alternative splicing event in cancer using highthroughput sequencing data analysis. 
 


Aldo Bonaventura 

(Pavia, Italia)


Dr. Bonaventura got his M.D. degree at the University of Pavia (Italy) in 2011.
From 2012 to 2013, he was awarded a research grant from IRCCS Fondazione Policlinico S. Matteo (Pavia, Italy) about continuous glucose monitoring and inflammatory biomarker assessment in patients with diabetic, end-stage chronic kidney disease.
He completed the Residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Genoa (Italy) in 2018. During this period, he joined the research group led by Prof. Montecucco investigating the inflammatory pathogenesis of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
In 2017, he started a PhD Program focused on cardiovascular diseases. In particular, he spent 2 years as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Pauley Heart Center of the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, USA under the guidance of Prof. Abbate. His PhD Program was focused on unraveling the role of interleukin-1β and the NLRP3 inflammasome in the pathogenesis of acute and recurrent pericarditis.
He is a Member of the European Society of Clinical Investigation (ESCI), Società Italiana di Diabetologia (SID), Federazione delle Associazioni di Dirigenti Ospedalieri Internisti (FADOI), and Società Italiana di Medicina Interna (SIMI). From 2021, he is a Member of the ESCI Young Research Committee.
He received the Discussant prize for the poster “Acquired hemophilia A in a patient with blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome on anticoagulation: a difficult balance” at the National Congress of the SIMI in 2015. He got a Travel grant for the 2018 ESCI Annual Scientific Meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
He authored more than 100 articles mainly focused on the role of innate immunity in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases (atherosclerosis, pericarditis) and diabetes. He is Member of the Editorial Board of Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome, BMC Cardiovascular Disorders and International Journal of Cardiology. He also served as a Topic Editor of International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Guest Editor of the Special Issue "Neutrophils in Cardiovascular Diseases" for International International Journal of Molecular Sciences, and Guest Editor of the Special Issues “Pericardial Diseases” for Panminerva Medica.
 


Felippe Hendrique Zuccolotto 

(São Paulo, Brazil)


I have a PhD in Medicine (Neurology/Neurosciences) from University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. My expertise is in Mitochondrial Metabolism, focused on Diagnosis and Drug Discovery.  I have studied mitochondrial physiology in several models, such as primary and lineage cells, tissues, isolated mitochondria, rats and mice. Currently I am working on laboratorial diagnosis of COVID-19, and looking for a postdoc position.

 


Stefano Ministrini 

(Spoleto, Italy) 

 

I graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Perugia (Italy) in 2012​, then I achieved a specialization in Internal Medicine at the same University in 2018. During my residency, I started working in clinical research in the fields of atherosclerosis, vascular medicine, cardiometabolic disorders and physical activity for health. In the same years I aquired clinical skills in ultrasound, especially cardiovascular ultrasound, clinical lipidology and bone metabolic diseases

After one year spent as a consultant at the Emergency Department of a small hospital in Italy, I went back to research and I am currently working as a research fellow at the Center for Molecular Cardiology at the University of Zürich (Switzerland) and at the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Perugia. My current fields of activity are cardiovascular biology, aging, atherosclerosis, arterial thrombosis and ischemic stroke. 

I’m associated to the European Society of Clinical Investigation since 2017 and I’m currently a reviewer for the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.
 


Jamol Uzokov  

(Uzbekistan) 
 

Jamol Uzokov is a PhD candidate of cardiology and cardiologist at the Republican Specialized Scientific Practical Medical Center of Therapy and Medical Rehabilitation in Uzbekistan, where he carries out research and works with patients. He graduated from the Tashkent Medical Academy, with bachelor’s degree in Medicine in 2013 and immediately went to master’s study in Cardiology at the same University. After obtaining master’s degree in 2016, he started working as a junior researcher and cardiologist at the Republican Specialized Scientific Practical Medical Center of Therapy and Medical Rehabilitation where he decided to pursue his PhD career in Cardiology in 2019. He is author and co-author of number of scientific papers, abstracts, monographs and methodological manuals. He joined the ESCI Young Research Committee in June 2021.


 


NEW GRANT PROGRAMS
The European Society for Clinical Investigation (ESCI) is pleased to announce its new grant programs to support basic and clinical researchers residing in Europe.

Exploratory Grants are aimed to support translational research conducted in an European institution, Mobility Grants are aimed to cover expenses of short secondments at an European host institution, and the science communication grant will fund outreach activities oriented to science communication or participative research initiatives in a European country.

The call for the grants will open every February each year.

The call for the latter will open June-July each year. Detailed information on each grant including eligibility and deadline for application is found on the ESCI website. 
Facebook
Twitter
Website
Email
Copyright © 2021 European Society for Clinical Investigation, All rights reserved.


Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can
update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp


Questions or remarks? Mail us at: esci@umcutrecht.nl