FNUSA-ICRC successfully completed its mission to Tokyo, Japan
In the middle of September, a delegation from FNUSA-ICRC visited Japan and engaged in various activities during its stay in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Scientists from the Center for Translational Medicine (CTM) of FNUSA-ICRC presented their research at TERMIS World Congress 2018 in Kyoto. The conference was a premier event for the dissemination of cutting-edge research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Ana Rubina Perestrelo successfully introduced her research on combined approach to investigate ECM nanostructure remodeling in heart failure, while Jorge Oliver De La Cruz delivered a speech on his recent discoveries regarding the impact of mechanical cues coming from ECM in cell function. Fabiana Martino presented a poster on a novel mechanosensor acting during cardiac pathologies. The CTM leader Giancarlo Forte was invited keynote speaker with a talk on cardiac mechanobiology who also organized and chaired a Symposium within the conference named “Mechanobiology and Force Sensing in Regenerative Medicine”.
CTM also organized a joint seminar with TWIns Institute in Tokyo focused on human cardiac tissue engineering. TWIns integrates two traditional and very progressive Japanese universities (Tokyo Women´s Medical University and Waseda University) and thus creates a great potential for collaboration with FNUSA-ICRC. At this occasion, the FNUSA-ICRC delegation also welcomed the opportunity to visit the TWIns labs to identify further areas of the collaboration established in 2017 by a Memorandum of Understanding. The delegation also met the representatives of the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Tokyo. The Czech Consulate Diplomatic Service has been recently very supportive in promoting FNUSA-ICRC abroad and in fostering the internalization of our research center. The mission to Tokyo represents an outstanding example of such attitude. FNUSA-ICRC got the opportunity to open up the first contact with the Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology and to also discuss the specific research framework and financial tools for a potential Czech-Japanese collaboration at the EU Delegation to Japan, Section for Science and Technology.
