Professor Alireza Fazeli
President

Alireza is leading lab groups at the Estonian University of Life Sciences, the University of Tartu, and the University of Sheffield. Fazeli lab is focused on human, animal, and plant extracellular vesicles research. Alireza hopes that his research makes a difference in day to day lives of ordinary people.

Professor Augustas Pivoriūnas
Treasurer

Augustas Pivoriūnas leads an active group of scientists and PhD students in the State Research Institute Centre for Innovative Medicine, Lithuania. His research interests focus primarily on extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from different types of adult stem cells and their applications in basic research and cell-based therapies.

Professor Reet Kurg
Board member

Reet Kurg is a Professor of Molecular Biomedicine and Director of the Institute of Technology at the University of Tartu. Her current research is dedicated to understanding of the biological functions and underlying regulatory mechanism of cancer testis antigens MAGEA proteins expression in cancer cells. She is active in the field of extracellular vesicles (EVs) with the aim of finding biomarkers for melanoma diagnostics and generating EVs with desired properties. More: https://kurglab.ee/

Professor Aija Linē
Board member

Aija Linē is the head of the Cancer Biomarker group and the scientific director of the Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre and a professor of molecular genetics and immunology at the University of Latvia. Her group is studying various aspects of EVs involvement in cancer, such as, what messages cancer cells are sending to each other and to normal cells, and what can we learn about cancer if we manage to hijack these messages? More recently, the group started to explore the molecular cargo and functional effects of exercise-induced EVs in cancer.

Aistė Jekabsone

Secretary

Aiste Jekabsone is CEO and co-founder of UAB Exolitus and a senior scientist in the Laboratory of Preclinical Drug Investigation of the Institute of Cardiology, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU, Kaunas, Lithuania). She holds a PhD in Biology (from LSMU) and was a MSCA Postdoc fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK), Biochemistry Department. She currently focuses on translational research in extracellular biology and energetic metabolism, exploring the impact of extracellular matrix and particle signalling via mitochondrial pathways. At Exolitus, her team develops human, mammalian, plant and mushroom cell-derived nanoparticle therapeuticals, cosmeceuticals and nutraceuticals.

Signe Parts
Board member

In September 2022, Signe started her PhD studies as a junior researcher at the University of Tartu under the supervision of Prof. Vallo Volke and Prof. Alireza Fazeli. During her PhD studies, Signe will continue her work with diabetic patients and extracellular vesicles. In addition to her research, she enjoys popularizing science. She is working as a lecturer at the University of Tartu Youth Academy where she is teaching biology workshops. She hopes to inspire people to be hopeless dreamers and to show that hard work will pay off.

Vladimirs Pilipenko
Board member

Vladimirs is a postdoctoral researcher in the field of Neuropharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Latvia. He is investigating the repurposement of antidiabetic drug metformin to treat Alzheimer’s disease-type changes in the rat brain. Vladimirs has also worked in collaboration with Professor Augustas Pivoriūnas to decipher the neuroprotective effects of extracellular vesicles in rats with experimental Parkinson’s disease. Vladimirs is the Vice-President of the Latvian Society of Pharmacology, and is a member of Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP).

Board member

Getnet Midekessa received his BSc in Applied Chemistry from Hawassa University, Ethiopia. Following graduation, he worked in both food and pharmaceutical industries in Ethiopia. Later he completed his master’s studies in protein science and biotechnology from the University of Oulu, Finland. During his master studies and post-graduation, he worked on projects involving protein characterization and extracellular vesicles research at the Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Oulu.
Getnet started his doctoral study in March 2018 at the Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu under the supervision of Prof. Fazeli. His research interests focus on the detection of surface extracellular vesicles using different biosensing technologies. As part of his research, he is also developing a tool to investigate the colloidal stability of extracellular vesicles for future drug delivery systems.