RESEARCH
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER
Adrian Valerin Cioanca
What is your current research interest?
Extra-cellular vesicles, microRNA changes in glia
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When did you start in the vision lab?
2018
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What is your favourite experiment?
Electron microscopy, Bioinformatics/Data analysis
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What are your favourite hobbies outside of the lab?
Soccer, Tennis
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What is your favourite cuisine?
Korean
BIO:
“Miscommunication is the root cause of most problems” – undebatable on a human level it remains true at the cellular level.
Hi there! This is Adrian and I have been a part of Clear Vision Research since March 2018. I graduated from my Bachelor of Advanced Science (1st class Honours) in 2017 then I worked for a year at the Save Sight Institute as a research associate.
My primary research interests revolve around understanding how retinal cells communicate and investigating whether cellular miscommunication is a culprit in retinal degeneration.
Cells can “hand over” messages to their immediate neighbours via direct contact or send messages over long distances in nanosized packages broadly termed extracellular vesicles or for short EVs.
In a short period of time, EVs went from being ignored as cells debris to being recognised as fundamental players in cellular communication, however their role in retinal tissue remained unexplored until the CVR group decided to “go and get them”. Our work successfully isolated and characterised EVs from retinal tissue and demonstrated their importance in retinal health.
I am proud of my contributions to the group’s pioneering efforts in this journey of discovery and while the work we have done so far only scratches the surface and it already generated many enthralling questions.