WiRe Fellows on the Move – Impressions from Matrix Biology Europe
A few weeks ago, the largest European congress on matrix biology was held in Florence [1]. At the conference, the WiRe programme was well represented – former WIRE fellow Dr Kornélia Baghy and current fellow Dr Arianna Parnigoni each presented their research conducted during their WiRE fellowships, both working in collaboration with Prof Dr Martin Götte of our University Hospitals Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics.
Dr Baghy had the chance to present the results of her WiRe project conducted in 2021 with Dr Götte’s research group, and the two also co-chaired a session on tumor biology.
© Prof Dr Götte
Current WiRe fellow Dr Arianna Parnigoni also presented data from her collaboration at the WWU and had the honuor to present her research as a finalist for the prestigious ‘Dick Heinegard Award’. While the award ultimately went to another researcher, being selected as a finalist is a big accomplishment, one well worth celebrating! This was the first in-person conference for Dr Parnigoni – due to pandemic restrictions, she had previously only presented at or attended conferences online, for her this was a unique opportunity to “finally meet all the ‘big bosses’ of the matrix biology research field” who she previously only knew of from their papers.
Arianna presented her research on hyaluronan and breast cancer in a talk entitled “A new role for HAS2-AS1 in regulating apoptosis independently from hyaluronan metabolism in triple-negative breast cancer cells”.
She shared with us some impressions of the day: “As a candidate, I had the opportunity to present my research work in front of a big audience (almost 300 people), which was terrifying, thrilling, and inspiring at the same time. This presentation was the result of some hard work I did during my PhD period, and I hope I will be able to publish these original results soon in a good scientific journal!”
Congratulations to these two fantastic researchers, and special thanks to Prof Dr Götte for his collaboration as well!
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