Thank you, Natalia, for the good work and the good spirit

After four months supported by the Short-Term Research Grants program of DAAD, Dr. Natalia Lorena Calvo from the group of Prof. Maria Celina Lamas in Rosario returns today to her native Argentina. The plan for her stay with us had been to encapsulate antifungal drugs in chitosan-based nanoparticles and nano-capsules as slow-release carriers for the efficient treatment of vaginal infections. In collaboration with Dr. Sruthi Sreekumar from our group, she managed to do so for two of the three drugs she had brought. She is now returning to Argentina with these nano-formulations, and with her new knowledge on how to produce and load them with the drugs. Testing their antifungal efficacy and incorporating them into a biomedical device to treat vaginal infections will be her task for the coming months at home. On our side, Sruthi will continue some of the work she did with Natalia, particularly characterizing in more depths the nano-capsules they produced. And together, they are already working on a nice joint publication describing their achievements. It has been a real treat to have Natalia with us! We are grateful for the DAAD fellowship which allowed her to work with us, and we are convinced that we have initiated a new international collaboration which will bear more fruits in the future.