News & Events

The Synergy Symposium for NanoBioMedicine was held on November 4th and 5th 2019 in Zagreb. The event, co-organized by nanotechnology groups from the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry and Ruđer Bošković Institute, brought together the collaborators from five projects funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.

The projects OrDeN (IP-2016-06-1137), NanoFaces (IP-2016-06-2436), CaPBiomimNanocomp (IP-2018-01-1493), NanoFlavNeuroProtect (IP-2016-06-8415), and NutriNTENSe (IP-2018-01-8119) are focused on nanotechnology and development of new systems for biomedical applications. This event provided the opportunity for researchers to present their work, learn more about the different experimental and theoretical approaches to the nanobiomedical field and create new connections and collaborations. It was also a great occasion for PhD students to show their progress.

The Symposium hosted two invited international speakers that are each renowned experts in their fields of study. Prof Heinrich Lang from the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany held a lecture “From: Small Tailor-made Molecules To: New Materials”. Prof Konrad Kowalski from the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Łódz, Poland presented the lecture “Organometallic Xeno-Nucleic Acid Nucleosides: Synthesis and Biological Activity”. Afterwards, the PhD students from all five projects presented some of their results. The event was concluded with the discussion and networking activities.

On November 4th – 5th, the Synergy Symposium for NanoBioMedicine will be held at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry and Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb. The Symposium is organized by the collaborators from four projects funded by the Croatian Science Foundation: OrDeN (IP-2016-06-1137), NanoFaces (IP-2016-06-2436), CaPBiomimNanocomp (IP-2018-01-1493), NanoFlavNeuroProtect (IP-2016-06-8415), and NutriNTENSe (IP-2018-01-8119)

The aim of the symposium is to bring together the researchers from nanomedicine-focused projects in Croatia, to foster collaboration and communication, encourage the exchange of knowledge and skills and provide the opportunity for PhD students to present their work. The symposium will host esteemed international guests: Prof Heinrich Lang from the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Germany and Prof Konrad Kowalski from the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Łódz, Poland, who will be holding the keynote lectures.

The programme of the event can be found here.

The first conference of the COST Action CA17140 Nano2Clinic (Cancer nanomedicine: from the bench to the bedside) was held from 15th to 17th October 2019 in Riga, Latvia. The Conference gathered leading experts in nanomedicine from all over the world to discuss the latest breakthroughs in

Dr Ivana Vinković Vrček, as the workpackage 2 leader, was the chair of one of the lecture sessions. PhD student Barbara Pem held a short talk titled: “Effect of particle shape and size on the interactions of gold nanoparticles with proteins of different glycosylation status”, which can be found on the following link.

PhD candidate Rafael Ramírez Jiménez from the ICMA – Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón, Zaragoza, Spain spent one month, from September 14 2019 to October 14 2019, at the Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health for his Short Term Scientific Mission application within the COST Action CA17140 NANO2CLINIC.

His STSM project was focused on understanding of the mechanism of action of nano-enabled medical agents, their enhanced biocompatibility and safety. He was trained in the Safe-by-Design approach to development of nano-enabled drug delivery system for anticancer therapy. At the same time, the NanoFaceS group benefited from his experience in the design and synthesis of nano-drug delivery agents. The mission provided the know-how necessary to provide further insight into specific aspects of medical applications of nanomaterials, in particularly for anticancer therapy by utilizing more efficient and safer-by-design nanomaterials.

From October 10th to 11th 2019 in Zagreb, the symposium of the Humboldt College Zagreb was held in the honor of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Alexander von Humboldt.

Named: “Science and educational challenges facing Europe in the next decade”, the symposium was organized with the aim of uniting scientists from different fields, from Croatia and Europe, to encourage the exchange of knowledge, foster interdisciplinary collaboration and direct the attention of the scientific community towards finding solutions to the obstacles in the way of scientific progress.

PhD student Barbara Pem presented the NanoFaceS project to the international audience with the poster: “Challenges and obstacles to study nano-bio interface”.

The poster is available here.

The one-day expert meeting “A scientific perspective on microplastics in nature and society” was held in Ljubljana, Slovenia  on October 4th 2019, organised by Slovenian Engineering Academy, SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Academies) and University of Ljubljana.

The meeting included an expert panel, in which Dr Ivana Vinković Vrček was an invited guest.  She discussed the safety and risk assessment of micro and nanoplastic materials.

From 11th to 13th of September 2019, 12th International Particle Toxicology Conference was held in Salzburg, Austria, with the aim of bringing together toxicology experts from all over the world to discuss safety, applications and research of particle toxicology.

Project collaborator Rinea Barbir participated with a poster presentation titled: “Sex-related in vivo response to silver nanoparticles after subacute oral exposure“, where she presented her research on the difference in toxicity of nanoparticles towards male and female mice after three weeks of exposure.

Doctoral candidate Emerik Galić also presented his results on nanoparticle toxicity in vitro with the poster titled “Genotoxocity of silver and selenium nanoparticles on human epithelial cells“.The study was conducted by the NanoFaceS group in collaboration with the groups from Universities of Osijek and Graz.

Project leader Dr Vinković Vrček was an invited lecturer on the 17th International Congress on Photobiology and 18th Congress of the European Society for Photobiology, held in Barcelona, Spain from August 25th to 30th 2019. In her lecture titled: “Biocompatibility assessment of up- and down-converting nanoparticles: implications of interferences with in vitro assays”, she presented the results of a recently published paper on the issues arising from nanoparticle interferences with the commonly used in vitro toxicity assays.

The link to the book of abstracts can be found here.

As a part of the Croatian-German bilateral project “Multiplex characterization platform for nano-bio interface”, NanoFaceS collaborator Krunoslav Ilić visited the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technology (Leibniz-IPHT) in Jena, Germany from July 1st to 26th 2019. Under the supervision of Prof Wolfgang Frizsche, he worked on the examination of protein adsorption to the nanoparticle surface by the localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) method, thereby continuing and further developing the previous experiments borne out of the Croatian-German collaboration.

Project collaborator Barbara Pem stayed as a guest researcher at the Institute of Occupational Medicine, Edinburgh, UK from April 15th to July 5th 2019. She was conducting a project “Interaction of metallic nanoparticles with biothiols – experimental vs. molecular dynamics approach” under the supervision of Prof Lang Tran.

The project combined the theoretical and experimental approach to the research of the nano-bio interface. It involved the study of the binding of biothiols and proteins to the surface of metallic nanoparticles and the impact of molecular corona on the oxidative activity of nanoparticles in vitro, while the complementary simulations were conducted in silico. The three-month reseacrh visit was funded by British Scholarship Trust.