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  • Istituto di Scienze della Vita

ANESTHESIOLOGY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE: CELL-TO-CELL COMMUNICATION IN THE HOSTILE MILIEU OF THE DAMAGED HEART, SANT’ANNA SCHOOL LIFE SCIENCES INSTITUTE FACULTY MEMBER GUEST SPEAKER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY ON WEDNESDAY 5 APRIL, 2017

Publication date: 26.03.2017
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How do cardiac cells “communicate”? And, in particular, how do they communicate in the hostile milieu of the damaged heart? Vincenzo Lionetti, MD, PhD, anesthesiologist, faculty member at the Institute for Life Sciences, (Medicina Critica Traslazionale) and TrancriLab coordinator, will focus on “Exosomal cross-talk within myocardium as a potential target for cardioprotection” as a guest speaker at Harvard Medical School (Harvard University) seminar to be held on April 5.

Myocardial infarction continues to be the most common cause of death worldwide. Recently, exosomes have been reported as a new tool for cell-to-cell communication, and some exosomes can inhibit cell apoptosis and increase cell proliferation, for the tissue repair after myocardial infarction. Exosomes are a subgroup of extracellular vesicles, released through exocytosis from many cell types including stem cells, endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts cells. Exosomes can mediate local and systemic cell-to cell communication through proteins delivery which induces physiological changes in recipient cells. The mechanisms of cardiac repair are currently under investigation: the study of exosomes will provide insights for the new therapeutics to cardiac remodelling after myocardial infarction.

Photo Archive: Vincenzo Lionetti, third from left, and his team of researcher