March 4, 2021, at 11 am CST
Hello, Morulas!
We would like to officially invite you all to the Morulas’ first Virtual Research Meeting! These meetings will happen three times a year and are designed to feature research from our own Morulas members. Our first speakers are José Felipe Warmling Spricigo, Universidade Federal de Goiás (Brazil), and Krishna Chaitanya Pavani, Ghent University (Belgium).
The meeting will take place March 4, 6 pm (GMT +1) at the following Zoom link. Hope to see you there!

Name: Krishna Chaitanya Pavani (postdoctoral researcher)
Affiliation: Ghent University (Belgium)
Title of the presentation: Role of extracellular vesicles in bovine embryo communication
Biography: After finishing his BTech degree in biotechnology (2010) in India, Krishna Pavani earned his master’s degree in 2012 at the University of Skövde, Sweden, in molecular biology. He completed his PhD from the University of the Azores, Portugal, in 2016 with specialization in animal reproduction. He finished his second PhD as an early stage researcher from Ghent University with specialization in veterinary sciences. Currently he is working as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. He has been working in reproductive research for nearly eight years; he was a student member of the European Cell Death Organization, International Society of Biometeorology, European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, IETS, and the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles. So far, he has published 15 research papers as first author with an H-index of 7. His work has been presented in various national and international peer-reviewed journals. He has supervised two bachelor’s students and one master’s student. Currently, he is guiding three PhD students in extracellular vesicle research.

Name: José Felipe Warmling Spricigo (assistant professor)
Affiliation: Universidade Federal de Goiás (Brazil)
Title of the presentation: Why the intrafollicular transfer of immature oocytes can be an alternative for the conventional systems of embryo production in cattle
Biography: José Felipe Warmling Spricigo earned a bachelor’s degree in veterinary medicine at the Santa Catarina State University (2009), and MS (2010) and PhD (2016) in animal science at the University of Brasília, Brazil. He conducted some of his projects at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain (2014). His first postdoctoral degree was at Embrapa Genetic Resources and Biotechnology, Brazil (2016). In collaboration with his supervisor, Spricigo studied an alternative system for bovine in vivo embryo production without the use of stimulating hormones. From 2017 to 2019, he held a postdoctoral grant in the Department of Animal Biosciences at the University of Guelph, Canada. During this time, his research focused on dairy cow health, nutrition, and reproductive physiology. Currently, he holds an adjunct professor position at the Escola de Veterinária e Zootecnia, at Universidade Federal de Goiás. Among his research interests are bovine reproductive physiology and biotechnology.