ECCR March Newsletter

Dear members,

Welcome to the March 2021 ECCR Newsletter.

The past few months have been challenging for all of us, and we have had to adapt to our new circumstances. Over a year ago we started facing social isolation and stress about research progress, funding, job security and this has also taken a toll on our personal lives. 

This disruption also interfered with some of our major activities, and we were forced to host our ECCR2020 Conference on a virtual platform. Despite all the challenges that we are facing, we are adapting to this new way of life and embracing it by using technology to our advantage in order to help us expand our scientific communication.       

Early Career Researcher’s Network 

As an international group of early career researchers (ECR, undergraduate or postgraduate student or an early career researcher in a postdoctoral or lecturer position), we aim to incentivise collegiality, collaboration, and mentorship to help ECRs to grow in their professional careers. To achieve this goal, we are working on the development of several actions that will soon start:

  • Journal clubs and webinars
  • Creation of a forum to promote ECRs interaction through the ECCR website
  • Mentorship programs
  • Diffusion of ECRs’ scientific achievements through the ECCR twitter account. We aim to help ECRs to increase the visibility of the research. 

If you are interested in joining us, do not forget to become member by clicking here and to follow the ECCR twitter account.

Actvities of Early Career Researcher’s Network in the last few months

The ECCR2020 Conference was held on a virtual platform. We as Early Careers Researchers (ECR) had the opportunity to present in one oral session during the conference. The main objective of the session was to promote and increase the visibility of the ECR, Dr Daniel Ketelhuth (University of Denmark) presented his work immunometabolism and atherosclerosis development.

The second presentation was made by Mr Ross Hanley (University of Glasgow), who talked about  grant opportunities to the ECRs in the UK and the EU.

The third part of the session comprised of selected abstracts submitted to ECCR conference and the ECRs had the opportunity to orally present their studies. 

We believe that this was a great opportunity for the ECRs and we hope this will be repeated with even greater success at ECCR2021. 

Joint Webinar ECCR – Turkish Society of Pharmacology 

The joint webinar Covid-19 and the Cardiovascular System: From Basic Mechanisms to Clinical Perspectives was held on Jan 27th, 2021 and it was a great success. More than 500 people attended the webinar, and we received extremely positive feedback. 

If you missed it, you can still watch the video by clicking here.

Career Opportunities 

The MIND SHIFT Network is offering 15 PhD positions in projects that aim to understand the dynamic interactions between vascular and endocrine pathways in hypertension.

More information can be found by clicking here.

Upcoming events

Joint session European Council for Cardiovascular Research (ECCR) – High blood pressure research council of Australia (HBPRCA) at ISH/ESH meeting, April 11th-14th, 2021

Some new concepts in hypertension (Breakfast Workshop) 

Chairs: Thomas Unger (ECCR), Markus Schlaich (HBPRCA)

ECCR: Matthias Barton (University of Zurich, Switzerland): Update on Estrogens in Cardiovascular Disease (15 mins)

HBPRCA: Yugeesh R. Lankadeva (University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia): Sympatho-inhibitory effects of dexmedetomidine reduces catecholamine requirements to restore target blood pressure and preserves renal oxygenation and function in septic acute kidney injury (15 mins)

ECCR: Rheure Alves-Lopes (Winner of ECCR 2019 YI Competition) – Inhibition of ACE C-domain and neprilysin in a chronic angiotensin II-dependent mouse model of hypertension (15 mins)

HBPRCA: Niamh Chapman (University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia) – Embedding better blood pressure measurement in existing primary care services (15 mins)
Discussion

Experimental Biology 2020 Symposium Form of the American Physiological Society – The Protective Arm of the Renin-Angiotensin System – April 30th, 2021 (2.00 -3.30 pm)

Chairs: Rhian Touyz, Glasgow and Thomas Unger, Maastricht

Speakers:
• The meaning of Mas – Michael Bader, Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC)
• The many aspects of cross-talk between the AT2-receptor and Mas – Ulrike Muscha Steckelings, University of Southern Denmark
• The protective ACE2/Ang 1-7/Mas axis in stroke – Colin Sumners College of Medicine, University of Florida Gainesville
• Novel therapeutic approaches upregulating the ACE2/angiotensin-(1-7)/Mas axis –Ludovit Paulis, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia
• AT2 agonists as treatment for vascular damage associated to obesity – Marta Gil-Ortega, Universidad San Pablo CEU, Madrid.

Thank you!

ECR: Marta Gil-Ortega, Francisco Rios and Giacomo Rossitto

President, Marisol Fernández