With a focus on bringing back knowledge in matrix biology which we could apply to our work on cardiac fibrosis (a central pathological feature of heart failure), they attended the lectures from internationally renowned matrix biologists and discussed cutting-edge methods with others in the field. Two of our senior PhD students were selected to present their work, one as a talk in concurrent session “Proteoglycans & Glycobiology” and the other as a poster hosted virtually for the entirety of the conference.
Athiramol Sasi, from the Christensen group, gave the talk on her project entitled “Versican in human and experimental cardiac diseases with fibrosis”. Her talk conveyed the message of the importance of the ECM proteoglycan versican in cardiac fibrosis and heart failure. Having communicated the topic concisely and smoothly, she received several interesting questions and as a result provoked some good discussions with experts in the field.
Additionally, Chloe Rixon, from the Lunde group, presented her poster on her project entitled “Lumican and extracellular matrix remodelling in clinical and experimental hypertrophic cardiomyopathy”. Her poster presented the role of another ECM proteoglycan, lumican, in a common genetic form of heart failure, including a section on novel ECM imaging methodology in order to receive feedback from the community. The poster had a high number of views and likes by the attendees of the meeting and allowed her to start some useful discussions on the topic.