THE PEOPLE BEHIND EV ONLINE

Meet the organizers.

Artemis Margaronis

Artemis Margaronis

Santiago Correa Laboratory, Columbia University

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“EVs are nature’s biomaterials.”

Ask me about

Yogurt-derived EVs · bioactive materials · EV-crosslinked hydrogels · immunoengineering · angiogenesis · EV–cell signaling · tissue remodeling

Artemis is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in Professor Santiago Correa’s Nanoscale Immunoengineering Laboratory. Her research lies at the intersection of biomaterials, extracellular vesicle biology, and immunoengineering. She develops injectable hydrogels in which yogurt whey-derived extracellular vesicles serve as both dynamic structural components and sources of intrinsic biological activity. Her work explores how these materials can be harnessed for tissue regeneration by promoting angiogenesis, immune-cell recruitment, and tissue remodeling, while identifying the molecular mechanisms that drive these responses. More broadly, she is interested in how naturally occurring biological signals can be incorporated into materials to create systems that actively communicate with and integrate into surrounding tissue.

Alessandra Arizzi

Alessandra Arizzi

Cheemeng Tan Laboratory, University of California, Davis

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“I like taking biology apart to see what it takes to put it back together.”

Ask me about

Cell-free systems · membrane proteins · synthetic vesicles · EV heterogeneity · bottom-up biology

Alessandra is a PhD candidate in Immunology at UC Davis with a background in biomedical engineering from ETH Zürich. Her research sits at the intersection of extracellular vesicle biology, synthetic biology, and membrane biophysics. She uses cell-free and bottom-up approaches to build simplified vesicle systems and study how molecular composition, organization, and heterogeneity give rise to biological function. Her work has focused particularly on membrane protein synthesis and topology and the engineering of minimal extracellular vesicle mimetics. More broadly, she is interested in biological heterogeneity, and what we can learn about complex systems by reconstructing rather than only dissecting them.

Reetta Pusa

Reetta Pusa

Saara Laitinen Laboratory, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service

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“What fascinates me about EVs is how much complexity can fit into something so small.”

Ask me about

Blood EVs · ion-exchange chromatography · surface modification · click chemistry

Reetta is a doctoral researcher based in Helsinki, Finland, with a background in pharmacy and a research focus on extracellular vesicles derived from blood products. Her background in pharmacy has led to a particular interest in developing EVs toward biomedical applications and translating fundamental EV research into practical solutions. Her research focuses on how EV isolation and purification methods affect vesicle characteristics and biological function, as well as on EV modification and targeting. She is also interested in developing effective and reproducible methods for studying extracellular vesicles in complex biological fluids such as blood.