News

The p53 tumour suppressor

14 October 2021

On the 15th of October Roger Leng of the University of Alberta, Canada will give a talk at 5.00 pm on The p53 Pathway in Cancer and Potential Therapeutic Applications. The talk will be available online at the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvd-6rqDsiHdLi_lePKKy1lhKBQW7VY8DB

The product of the p53 gene is a transcription factor with crucial tumour suppressor functions. Mutations in the p53 gene occur very frequently in human cancers and contribute to tumour onset and/or progression.  The seminar will discuss research the role of p53 in cancer and new approaches to restore p53 activity in cells that have lost it.

The seminar poster that can be downloaded here. Further details, including a seminar abstract and a biographical sketch of the speaker are available at this page.  All College students are invited to attend, especially undergraduates and posgraduates reading Biology, Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine and PhD students incolved in life science projects.

Image: immunofluorescent staining of human cells for p53 (green) and actin (red).






The CCR5 Receptor

13 October 2021

On the 13th of October Luca Vangelista of the University of Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan will give a talk at 5.00 pm on CCR5: a Crossroad for Infection and Inflammation. The talk will be available online at the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88600327505?pwd=TDZLYlBoYTgzcmNIMXI3UlZ5dy94Zz09


The CCR5 receptor plays a key role in the entrance of HIV in target cells. HIV is the virus causing the Acquired Immuno Deficienty Syndrome (AIDS), a disease that has killed over 36 million people from 1981 to 2020.  The seminar will discuss research on CCR5 in the context of the HIV infection as well as other roles of this receptor in inflammation. 

The seminar poster that can be downloaded here. Further details, including a seminar abstract and a biographical sketch of the speaker are available at this page.   All College students are invited to attend, especially undergraduates and posgraduates reading Biology, Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine and PhD students incolved in life science projects.

Image: an electron micrograph of the HIV virus (courtesy of H Gelderblom, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin).






Entrepreunership Club - Pavia

24 April 2021

Elisa Seghetti, a member of Collegio Nuovo and co-founder of Entrepreneurship Club Pavia (E-Club Pavia for short) is bringing E-Club Pavia to the attention of Volta students and is inviting members of Volta them to the next Club event.

E-Club Pavia is a University group aiming to create a network of University students with a serious interest in entrepreneurship and is organising a meeting online on Thursday, the 29th of April at 7.30 pm in collaboration with the startup Thesis4U and the student group ImGestionale during which 4 startup companies will outline their ideas and business plans and will illustrate in the process how to 'pitch' such presentations.

Business inclined members of Collegio A Volta are welcome to join the E-Club Pavia event on Thursday 29th at the following url  https://thesisforyou.com/iscriviti-allevento-su-come-fare-il-pitch/.

The College expresses its gratitude to Elisa Seghetti for extending this invitation to the members of Volta.



RNA Vaccines

11 April 2021

College will host a lecture entitled RNA Vaccines for Pandemic Threats. Promise of the technology and economic justice in its development to be given online at 6.00 pm on 22 April 2021 by 

George P Smith , Professor of Italian - Emeritus - and Fellow of St John’s College at Cambridge University. The lecture can be joined through this link.

George Smith is Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouriwas born in Norwalk, Connecticut in the United States and made fundamental contributions fto the field of protein engineering by developing the phage display technology for which he was awarded a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. 

The poster of the lecture is available here and further information can be found on this page. All College students are warmly invited to join this major science lecture.

Image: A three dimensional model of a coronavirus (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC).



Dante Alighieri

10 April 2021

College will host a major lecture on Dante Alighieri entitled: Ut Pictura Poesis & ut Poesis Pictura (subtitle: Simbiosi e interazioni tra Dante e i grandi artisti toscani all’epoca dei Comuni) to be given online at 6.00 pm on 15 April 2021 by 

Patrick Boyde, Professor of Italian - Emeritus - and Fellow of St John’s College at Cambridge University. The lecture can be joined through the following link.

Patrick Boyde is widely regarded as one of the major scholars of Dante’s work of all times.

He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and a Honorary Member of the American Dante Society.  He received the highest tribuets and prizes from the City of Florence (1995) and the Italian Presidency (1998 and 2004) for 'outstanding contributions to Italian culture'.

All College students are warmly invited to join this unique opportunity of hearing Patrick Boyde on Dante Alighieri.

The poster of the lecture is available here and further information can be found on this page. The video of lecture is available here.

Image: A portrait of Dante showing his Commedia (1456) by Domenico di Michelino based on a drawing of Alesso Baldovinetti. Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, Firenze.



European Union. A Political Journey

01 November 2020

College will host a major seminar serie entitled European Union: A Political Journey between November 3rd  and November 17th.  The series has been organised by College undergraduate L Ferrero (Political Science, Yr 2) and Volta representative for Acersat, the office of the University of Pavia that acts in support of a number of student's cultural and events.

The 'political journey' of the European Union has met remarkable challenges in the last 10-12 years. The social consequences of 2008 Financial Crisis hit the people of Europe in a major way and it was widely perceived that the financial tools and procedures available produced a slow and inadequate response to the social damage created by the crisis. But this was just the first of the last wave of challenges that the European Union had to face. The migrant crisis resulting from both the lasting conflicts in the Middle East and the social and political instability of large areas of the African continent has been met with indifference and limited responses at central European level leaving countries such as Italy and Greece at the mercy of events and unable - in many instances - to prevent huge human tragedies and loss of life.  Connected with the migrant crisis Europe has witnessed a remarkable surge of nationalism in many countries leading, in the case of the United Kingodom to a referendum that decided to take the country out of the European Union.  Finally, the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated once more sharp divisions among member states although, in this instance, the institutions of the European Union have been able to agree a set of financial measures that may considerably assist the strain caused by the Covid emergency on the like of millions and millions of European citizens.

The seminar series European Union: A Political Journey basically asks the question as to whether the European Union has the ability to withstand these challenges and set a clear roadmap for the Union in years to come.  Speakers at the series will include Emma Bonino, one of the strongest advocates of the European project and herself a European Commissioner between 1994 and 1999 as well as four major scholars in the field of European Studies: Sophie Heine (Oxford University), Cetta Mainwaring (Glasgow University), Jerome Creel (Ecole Superieure du Commerce in Paris) and Simon Usherwood (Surrey University).  All College students are warmly invited to attend the events of this seminar series.

Seminars will be held online due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic at 11.00 am on November 3rd, 10th, 12th adn 17th. The poster of the series can be downloaded here.

The links for connecting to the seminars via zoom are below.  Further information about the seminar series can be found on the relevant seminar pages accessible from the Seminars/Colloquia page of the College website. The webcasts of each seminar will be uploaded on the seminar pages for students unable to attend the seminars live on the above dates.

E Bonino and S Heine, 3rd November at 11.00 am
European Union is our destiny. Populism is the worst enemy this vision (1)  &
European federalism at a cross road: Why we need to rethink federalism around the idea of sovereignty (2)
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqce6hrDwiHtQF720qSvVyQLQPYIWE6WqJ

C Mainwaring, 10th November at 11.00 am
Constructing “Europe”: Reflections from the Mediterranean
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUofumpqzwpH9FgQKEr_VOZxA5uuMwLYEcA

J Creel, November 12th at 11.00 am
Convergence in the euro area and the consequences of Covid-19 crisis
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIocO-qpzIvHdTpHvGrPen-B1Mkos-DBafS

S Usherwood, 17th November at 11.00 am
Where next for EU-UK relations ?
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqcu6hrjkpGNN84UBRtQHFBrnuB98-Ioq1

Back on Track

29 August 2020

For a few months the Volta website has been silent as much of the communication between the College and its students took place by internal emails.

The Covid-19 pandemic affected our College as it affect other Colleges in Pavia and other Collegiate Universities.  But two points clearly emerged from the crisis caused by the SARS Cov-2 virus:

(i)   Many Volta students elected to stay in College throughout the lockdown months. Although the College does not have the full data from other Colleges in Pavia it is clear that the occupancy of Volta throughout lockdown has been one of the highest if not the highest across University. And fortunately no Volta student has been infected by the virus or at least not in a recognisable, symptomatic way.

(ii) Volta made the point that teaching ought to continue throughout lockdown and College is indebted and very grateful to the following students (listed alphabetically): A Barone, G Burini, M Freiherr von Wangenheim, V Mangiaterra, S Merlini. D Nodari, O Najlani, I Rosignoli and the following external students or post-doctoral fellows (in alphabetical order): S Burgess, S Fofou Fotchi, P Minerba (a Volta alumnus), M Musci, E Naldi and I Rossinelli.

Together these students and post docs delivered 168 hours of Course material and 264 of supervisions, the majority of which was offered online, often with the help of graphic tables and unquestionably the teaching that College carried out notwithstanding Covid-19 and the ensuing lockdown contributed in a major way to the strong academic results achieved by the members of Volta by the end of July deadline and to be presented at the General Assembly that will take place early in October.

Volta and its members sincerely hope that the worst of the SARS Cov-2 may now be over but the College will maintain the strictest vigilance and enforce tight discipline in order to try and keep the virus outside the College boundaries and enable our students to have a safe and productive 2020/21 academic year at Volta. 

 



Blood Stem Cells

01 December 2019

On the 5th of December Ryohichi Sugimura of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University will give a talk  on Spatial-Temporal Regulations in Human Developmental Haematopoiesis at 5.00 pm in the College lecture theatre (Collegio A Volta). 

All 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 speaker and seminar is available at a dedicated web page.

 



Teaching at Volta

30 November 2019

A number of graduate and mature undergraduate students have applied for roles in College teaching (courses or spervisions) or support jobs (library). There are several teaching roles, however, which are still unfilled and College invites young University academic staff of the University of Pavia (assegnisti di ricerca and ricercatori) to express their interest in fullfilling the roles below:

31. Writing a Dissertation (6 hour course)
32. Career Advice (6 hour course)
33. Web Design (12 hour course)
34. LaTeX (12 hour course)
35. Computer Coding (12 hour course)

Days and hours of teaching are flexible but all College teaching takes place after 5.00 pm and typically after 6.00 pm.  Further details can be found in the original call of interest available on the EDiSU website. Interested candidates should fill the form available  here and return it by email to E Gherardi.



Metabolic profiling

27 November 2019

On the 28th of November 2019 Mattia Zampieri, ETH Zurich, will give a seminar entitled Using metabolic fingerprints to rationally design combination therapies at 2.00 pm in the College lecture theatre (Collegio A Volta). 

All 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 speaker and seminar can be found on a dedicated web page

 



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