Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD) will be granting the Travel Award to two junior scientists. The applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee consisting of senior scholars from the JCDD Editorial Board.

This award provides financial support for the winners to attend an international conference in the field of cardiovascular medicine to be held in 2024, in order to hold a presentation, present a poster, or both.

Candidate Requirements:
– Postdoctoral fellows or PhD students.
– Plans to attend an international conference in 2024 (oral presentation or poster).

Required Application Documents:
– Information of the conference the applicant is planning to attend and the abstract that will be submitted.
– Curriculum vitae and list of publications.
– Justification letter describing the focus of the research (max. 800 words).
– Letter of recommendation from the supervisor, research director, or department head, which also confirms the applicant’s status as a postdoctoral fellow/PhD student.

The winners (two awardees) will each be awarded CHF 600 and an electronic certificate.

Please submit your applications for the JCDD 2024 Travel Award online by 31 January 2024. Prizes will be awarded at the end of March 2024 and announced on the JCDD website.

Kind regards,
JCDD Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease is inviting applications for the JCDD 2023 Best PhD Thesis Award. This prize will be awarded to a PhD student or recently qualified PhD that has produced a highly anticipated thesis with great academic potential. The applications will be assessed by an evaluation committee led by the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Thomas Brand.

Eligibility and Requirements
– The candidate must be a PhD student or recently qualified PhD who has produced a highly anticipated thesis with great academic potential;
– The PhD thesis must be their original work;
– The PhD thesis must be defended in 2023.

Required Application Documents
– An executive summary of the PhD thesis in English of around 3000 words;
– A letter from the PhD supervisor recommending the candidate for consideration for this award;
– The candidate’s CV, including a list of publications connected with the thesis;
– An electronic copy of the PhD thesis;
– A scanned copy of the PhD diploma (or certificate of studying at a school or research institute as a PhD student going to graduate or participate in graduation thesis defenses).

Selection Criteria
– Quality of resume and publications;
– Relevance of the candidate and research description;
– Novelty of the candidate’s PhD thesis;
– Strength of the recommendation letter;
– Anticipated academic potential;
– Originality and impact of the research.

Prizes
– Bonus (CHF 500);
– A chance to publish a paper free of charge in JCDD in 2024 after peer review;
– An electronic certificate.

The application deadline is 29 February 2024. The winner will be announced on the JCDD website by the end of April 2024.

Kind regards,
JCDD Editorial Office

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the JCDD 2023 Travel Award Evaluation Committee, I am pleased to announce the winners of the JCDD 2023 Travel Award. The award has been granted to Dr. Cristiana Dondi, a postdoctoral fellow in the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA, who will attend the Gordon Research Seminar- Cardiac Regulatory Mechanisms (22nd June 2023, New London, USA); and Dr. Tamara Gonzalez-Costa, a PhD student in the Faculty of Medicine, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain, who will attend the Cardiovascular Development Meeting 2023: The Official Meeting of the ESC Working Group on Development, Anatomy and Pathology (6th November 2023, Paris, France).

As the awardees, they will each receive an honorarium of CHF 600 and an electronic certificate.

With so many high-quality applicants, the evaluation process and final decision were challenging. We would like to thank all the applicants for submitting their diverse and fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the assessment committee, I congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

Prof. Dr. Maurice Van Den Hoff, on behalf of the JCDD 2023 Travel Award Evaluation Committee

Dear Colleagues,

As the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD), I am pleased to announce the winners of the JCDD 2022 Travel Award.

The award has been granted to Dr. Susanna Cooper, a PhD student at St. George’s University of London, UK, and Dr. Renée Tillie, a PhD student at the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, Maastricht University Medical Center, the Netherlands.

With so many high-quality applicants, the evaluation process and final decision were challenging. We would like to thank all of the applicants for submitting their diverse and fascinating range of research topics. On behalf of the Assessment Committee, I congratulate the winners on their accomplishments.

Prof. Dr. Andy Wessels
Editor-in-Chief, JCDD

Dear Colleagues,

As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD), I am pleased to announce that the winner of the 2018 JCDD Travel Award (2nd period) is Dr. Colette A. Bichsel, a postdoctoral researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, who will receive 500 Swiss Francs towards her travel expenses to attend the International Vascular Biology Meeting, held in Helsinki, Finland.

Dr. Bichsel’s current research focuses on cellular and biomimicking in vitro models to study capillary malformations. The major conclusion of Dr. Bichsel’s research presented in her abstract for this meeting is that they found that GNAQ-mutant endothelial cells in CM lesions are associated with LYVE1+/MRC1+ accessory cells.

Dear Colleagues,

As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD), I am pleased to announce that the winner of the 2018 JCDD Travel Award (First period), is Dr. Monika Gladka-de Vries, a Postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Eva van Rooij’s laboratory at Hubrecht Institute KNAW, Utrecht, the Netherlands, who will receive 500 Swiss Francs towards her travel expenses to attend the Heart Failure Winter Meeting 2018 to be held in Les Diablerets, Switzerland.

The major conclusion of Dr. Gladka’s research presented in her abstract for this meeting is that she used single-cell sequencing on both the healthy and diseased adult heart to study transcriptomic differences between cardiac cells, as well as cell type-specific changes in gene expression during cardiac disease.

We would like to thank all the applicants for participating and it was difficult to pick one winner given the diverse and high-quality selection of work submitted. For candidates who lost or missed the first period of the award, you are also welcome to apply for the second period Travel Award in 2018.

Prof. Dr. Andy Wessels

As Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cardiovascular Development and Disease (JCDD), I am pleased to announce that the winner of the 2017 JCDD Travel Award, is Dr. Jae Gyun Oh, a Postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Roger J. Hajjar’s laboratory at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai, NY, USA, who will receive 800 Swiss Francs towards travel expenses to attend 2017 Keystone Symposia to be held in Keystone, CO, USA.
Dr. Oh’s current research focuses on the role of miR-146a as a SUMO1 targeting microRNA (miR). SUMO1 has been shown to be a critical player in heart failure (HF) pathophysiology. The expression of miR-146a shows an inverse correlation with SUMO1. In his project, Dr. Oh investigated which cell types contribute to miR-146a expression. He analyzed isolated myocyte and non-myocyte fractions from normal and failing hearts and determined that during HF, upregulation of miR-146a and downregulation of SUMO1 was confirmed in cardiomyocytes, but that the amount of pri-mir-146a indicating transcription of miR-146a was increased only in nonmyocytes.
He tested the hypothesis that cell-to-cell transfer of mature miR-146a can explain the increase in miR-146a in cardiomyocytes and found that miR-146a is mainly secreted from fibroblasts via exosomes and that these fibroblast exosomes are taken up by cardiomyocytes. The major conclusion of Dr. Oh’s research presented in his abstract for this meeting is that fibroblasts are a major source of miR-146a during HF, and exosome-mediated miR-146a transfer is a critical mechanism of cardiomyocyte function.