iBB

Miguel de Almeida Fuzeta from SCERG-iBB delivered an oral presentation at the Nanotechnology in Cancer: Engineering for Oncology conference, organized by the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR). At the conference, Miguel (5th from left in the picture) was awarded a travelling grant by EACR and Worldwide Cancer Research. In his presentation, entitled “Manufacturing Human Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cell (MSC)-Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Vertical-Wheel Bioreactors for Cancer Therapy” he reported his PhD work so far. The work involves a collaboration between researchers from iBB and iMM Lisboa, being supervised at IST by Prof. Cláudia Lobato da Silva and Dr. Nuno Bernardes. This conference gathered a multidisciplinary set of researchers using nanotechnology strategies for cancer therapy and diagnostics. The conference took place in Cambridge, United Kingdom on the 12-14th September.

Cell-based therapies have been showing unprecedented therapeutic potential, already changing the landscape of medical care. Extracellular vesicles are nanoparticles naturally secreted by cells, which are important mediators of intercellular communication in our organism and are able to mediate therapeutic effects from their cells of origin. These vesicles can also be used as drug delivery vehicles to target multiple diseases. In a paper recently published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, iBB researchers in collaboration with iMM Lisboa, CQE-IST and the companies PBS Biotech and AventaCell Biomedical, developed a new strategy for the robust and scalable production of extracellular vesicles from mesenchymal stromal cells, using bioreactors and an animal serum-free cell culture supplement. This strategy, developed within the frame of the PhD Program in Bioengineering of Miguel de Almeida Fuzeta, is a relevant step towards the large scale production of extracellular vesicles form different human tissue sources, which are promising tools for the development of new therapies against a variety of diseases, from cardiovascular diseases to cancer.