On the 19th of October 2018 Manlio Vinciguerra, of the Institute of Translational Medicine at Brno, Czech Republic, will give a seminar on Cancer stemness and adaptive immune evasion in hepatocellular carcinoma in the College lecture theatre. Liver cancer is a major medical issue worldwide. In his talk M Vinciguerra will discuss advances in understanding the cell(s) of origin of human hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer, and how these cancer cells are able to evade the immune system. All College students are invited to attend, especially those reading Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here. Further information about the seminar and speaker can be found here.
Image: differentiating liver organoids in culture. Courtesy of Meritxell Huch, Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge (UK).
On the 18th of October 2018 Virginie Sottile, of the University of Nottingham (UK, will give a seminar on Stem cell models of differentiation and regeneration in the College lecture theatre. In her talk V Sottile will discuss advances in stem cell biology and their potential impact on the therapy of a number of major human diseases. All College students are invited to attend, especially those reading Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here. Further information about the seminar and speaker can be found here.
Image: human embryonic stem cells in culture
The University is producing a professional video on 'Life and work at the University of Pavia' that will feature prominently students' life and work. Students are needed for this filming, and specifically:
- 20 students are needed on Friday 12 October at 3.00 pm at Biblioteca della Scienza e della Tecnica (the circular building facing the Department of Engineering),
- 10 students are needed on Friday 12 October at 5.00 pm at Kirolab (top floor, Golgi Spallanzani building, 9 via A Ferrata) and
- 30 students are needed on Saturday 13 October at 1.45 pm at the Eucentre building (a building at the back of the College, 1 via A Ferrata), .
Filming will probably require 15-20 mins (at each session) and I sincerely hope that a number of Volta students will take part in this worthwhile exercise that will promote the University across the world. Students interested in taking part should write to the College Director who will forward their names to the staff of Servizio Comunicazione di Ateneo.College also request that students who read this post may also inform other students less prompt in reading the College web pages.
On the 11th of October 2018 Giovanni Solinas, of the of the Institute of Medicine of the University of Gothenburg Sweden, will give a seminar on PI3-Kinase in Metabolic Homeostasis and Tumour Progression at 2.00 pm in the College lecture theatre. In his talk G Solinas will discuss the multiple and pivotal role of PI3-kinase in cell behaviour and a further and major role in cancer progression. All College students are invited to attend, especially those reading Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here. Further information about the seminar and speaker can be found here.
Image: Phosphotidylinositol
College recently requested its members to provide interim library support on a voluntary basis while EDiSU completes the new procedures about students' paid contributions to College teaching and services.
The College is now pleased to report that MSc student in Construction Engineering Nicolò Salis and medical undergraduate Paolo Minerba have agreed to provide library support on a volutnary basis. Loan service will be between 6.00 and 7.00 pm in a small office on the ground floor near the director's office. Service will start on Monday the 8th of October. College is extremely grateful to NIcolò and Paolo for this work.
Image: the JTM Needham College library (photograph by former Volta undergraduate S Tondi).
High-tech company FacilityLive, based in Pavia, together with the Pavia City Council and the University of Pavia is organising a New Ideas Festival in Pavia from October 19th to 21st (a flyer of the event can be found here).
As part of this New Ideas Festival, four Colleges - one of which is Volta - on Saturday the 20th of October will enter a challenge in which they will submit innovative proposals tackling problems in four areas and offering solutions based on currently available digital technology. The four areas are: memoria (history in all its aspects), salute (health care), sport and territorio (county/land). Each College will tackle only one of the four areas through a draw. Hence Volta must build a proposal in each area because it will only find out the area assigned on October 20th.
College students of any degree Course are asked here to submit proposals for the New Ideas Festival through a brief email to the director. Out of this list, College will choose one proposal per area and a team of 5 students who will participate at the event on October 20th. The Volta proposals will not be communicated to the organisers of the Festival at present (they will be guarded jealously at Volta until October 20th) but College needs to collect and evaluate ideas internally and submit, by Sunday the 7th of October, the names of the five students who will participate in the event (the Volta team). Deadline for receipt of proposal from College students is midnight on Saturday the 6th of October. There will be large coverage of the New Ideas Festival in both local and national media.
Image: courtesy of Lambeth Academy, Clapham, London
That a few chemists could write compelling Italian prose was made clear a number of years ago by Primo Levi. Piersandro Pallavicini follows on Levi's footsteps: a professor of Chemistry at the University of Pavia, he has published more than a dozen novels and short stories that won wide acclaim and include work translated in several languages, including German and English. The themes of his writings are diverse. The recent wave of Italian immigrants frorm the African continent is a powerful and recurring one.
Pallavicini will visit College and meet Volta students on Monday the 8th of October 2018 at 9.00 pm in the College lecture theatre. He will be introduced by Volta graduate member Federica Lupoli and he will take questions from students. His works include: Il mostro di Vigevano (1999), Madre nostra che sarai nei cieli (Feltrinelli, 2002), Atomico Dandy (Feltrinelli, 2005), African Inferno (Feltrinelli, 2009), A braccia aperte (Edizioni Ambiente, 2010), Romanzo per signora (Feltrinelli, 2012), Una commedia italiana (Feltrinelli, 2014) and La chimica della bellezza (Feltrinelli, 2016).
The poster of the event can be downloaded here. All College students are warmly invited to participate at this event of Freshers' Week 2018/19.
On the 8th of October 2018 Carlo Gaetano, of the Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri, Pavia, will give a seminar on Targeting diseased epigenomes by tuning mitochondrial metabolism at 5.00 pm in the College lecture theatre. The seminar addresses the important and emerging link between epigenetics and disease and will offer evidence of such link from studies carried out in the speaker's laboratory. All College students are invited to attend, especially those reading Medicine, Biology, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences.. The poster of the seminar can be downloaded here. Further information including a synopsis of the talk and a biographical sketch of the speaker are available here.
Image: courtesy of E Heard, Institut Curie, Paris, France
The first College seminar of the 2018/19 academic year will take place today 4th of October and will be given by Giulio Cossu of the University of Manchester at 5.00 pm in the College lecture theatre. The seminar, entitled Challenging therapies for muscular dystrophies will give an overview of the progress made in developing molecular and cellular approaches for the therapy of this group of diseases and will highlight the formidable obstacles that remain to be overcome. All College students are invited to attend, especially students of the medical and science courses. The poster of the seminar can be downloaded here. Further information including a synopsis of the talk and a biographical sketch of the speaker are available here.
As the first College seminar kicks off today 4th of October at 5.00 pm, College needs to outline the procedure that students must follow in order to prove their attendance and participation in College teaching. The procedure is straightforward:
(i) download your copy of the academic diary from the College website. Print the diary on separate sheets - not back to front - and do not staple these pages as this will hamper scanning, (ii) complete the diary by recording each attendance at courses, supervisions, lectures, etc with title, date and duration of the teaching in hours where relevant, (iii) ask the supervisor to sign your attendance. In the case of external lectures/seminars ask the College senior tutor or director to sign.
At the end of the academic year hand in your academic diary to the staff in the College Office who will scan it, return the hard copy to you, give you a copy of the electronic version and submit to the College director who will attach it to your annual report. All College students are warmly invited to keep an academic diary and this is compulsory for students who have entered Collegio A Voltain 2018/19.
Image: Two pages from one of Charles Darwin’s Beagle voyage diaries.
October 2018