Victoria Calzada, MSc, PhD, is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Sciences, Universidad de laRepública, Montevideo-Uruguay. In her current position, she is working with aptamers as in vivo molecularimaging probes and as biotherapeutics. She is the principal investigator of thenational Aptamer group which includes students, national researchers andinternational collaborators.Dr. Calzada is a young researcher, with several peer-review publications in internationaljournals as well as participated as peer- review in grants and papers. Besides,she has a sustained list of funding for her research program. Thus, since 2016is distinguished with the Level 1 of the National Research System and she wasrecently awarded the national L’OREAL-UNESCO award for Women in Science.In addition, the Iberoamerican Network of Aptamers (REDIBA) is coordinated by Dr. Calzada since2018.Hugo Cerecetto received the Pharmacist degree from Universidad de la República and the Doctor ofPhilosophy in Medicinal Chemistry from Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona,Spain). He joined the Centro de Investigaciones Nucleares at Facultad de Ciencias-Universidad de la República(Montevideo, Uruguay) as Área de Radiofarmacia responsible in 2013. Prior to coming to Facultad de Ciencias, he served as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Facultad de Química-Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay). He has published extensively, almost 260 papers, in the area of medicinal chemistry and specialized R+D+i of new drugs.In 2010, he was awarded the Elsevier-SCOPUS Prize for his publications. He has served on peer review panels and scientific advisory boards at Uruguayan and Ibero-American agencies. Dr. Cerecetto has had an active interest in graduateeducation for many years.Juan Pablo Tosar, PhD, is Assistant Professor and head of the Analytical Biochemistry Laboratoryat Facultad de Ciencias (Universidad de la República, Uruguay). He is also senior researcher at the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo, Uruguay. His research is focused on the design of new analytical techniques for the study of nucleicacids, from electrochemical biosensors to next generation sequencing methods, with an emphasis on extracellular vesicles and extracellular RNA. His group has discovered extracellular ribosomes and extracellular nicked tRNAs, among other relevant scientific contributions. He is currently focused on understanding the mechanisms of RNA-mediated intercellular communication and the recognition of extracellular RNAs by innate immune sensors. He is also interested in exploringnew ways to use cell-free RNA molecules as both diagnostic and therapeutic agents.
