Dr. Melero-Martin graduated in Chemical Engineering from University of Seville, Spain, in 1998. After working three years in industry, he went on to earn a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2005. He then trained as a post-doctoral fellow in the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital. He joined the Department of Cardiac Surgery at Boston Children's Hospital and became Assistant Professor in Surgery, Harvard Medical School, in 2010.

 

Dr. Melero-Martin’s research is focused on how to build vascular networks and vascularize tissues. His laboratory is a reference in human blood-derived circulating endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) and has contributed multiple original papers on various aspects of ECFC biology. His group has developed novel approaches to bioengineer vascular networks and has shown that bioengineered vascular networks can be generally used to harness the regenerative potential of other stem cells. In addition, his group developed a model that uses genetically-engineered ECFCs to achieve controlled release of therapeutic proteins in vivo.

 

You can read more about Dr. Melero-Martin’s research at meleromartinlab.com.

 

Anna Randi is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute. Her main research interests are in vascular biology and vascular hemostasis. Prof. Randi is a clinically qualified haematologist, specialized in haemostasis and thrombosis. After graduation from the University of Milan (Italy), she obtained her PhD with Prof P.M. Mannucci, on the molecular basis of von Willebrand Disease. As part of her PhD studies, Prof. Randi spent 3 years at Washington University, in St. Louis (USA), in Dr. J.E. Sadler’s laboratory, where she was involved in the first characterization of mutations in the von Willebrand factor gene. Here Prof. Randi became interested in cell adhesion mechanisms and moved to the UK to study vascular inflammation at Cancer Research UK, in Dr. N. Hogg’s laboratory. Prof. Randi then established her research group in GlaxoSmithKline, where she eventually became Head of Translational Medicine in the Inflammation area. Whilst at GSK, Prof. Randi also held an honorary contract with Imperial College, and collaborated with Prof. D. Haskard and the British Heart Foundation on the genomics of cardiovascular diseases. She moved her lab to Imperial College in 2003.

 

Dr. Paschalaki is a respiratory physician working as a Clinical Research Fellow in Professor Peter J. Barnes and Professor Anna Randi’s groups and in collaboration with Professor Athol Wells’ group (Interstitial Lung Disease Unit – Royal Brompton Hospital) at Imperial College London. She has developed a particular interest in the molecular mechanisms of endothelial dysfunction and vascular disease, since cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a chronic lung inflammatory disorder and the 3rd most frequent cause of death in the Western World. In her PhD study, she used circulating endothelial progenitors as a tool to study endothelial defects. She demonstrated that endothelial progenitors from smokers and COPD patients are senescent and dysfunctional and unable to correct vascular damage due to epigenetic alterations. This has been the first study that provides evidence of accelerated aging (senescence) of endothelial progenitors caused by cigarette smoke-oxidative stress, and is of great clinical importance as it may explain the link between COPD and cardiovascular disease. Her aim is to further investigate the pathways involved in endothelial dysfunction and vascular aging in chronic lung disorders and identify possible therapeutic targets for intervention. Understanding these mechanisms is important, as they highlight pathogenetic pathways involved in COPD and in other diseases, such as chronic kidney disease and diabetes mellitus, characterized by increased oxidative-stress and vascular dysfunction.