Teodora Cato - Secondment from IORS to GENOS

Teodora Cato from the Institute of Oncology and Radiology of Serbia (IORS) spent the month of April 2026 at Vall d‘Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), in Bercelona, Spain.

During her secondment, Teodora focused on the functional characterization of various HCC1806 breast cancer cell line variants, including those transduced with AlfaTag-mClover lentiviral constructs, utilizing colony formation (CFA), spheroid formation (SFA), and invasion assays monitored via confocal microscopy. She also managed the large-scale expansion of the MDA-MB-231 cell line for the production of extracellular vesicles (EVs), and their purification using a standardized workflow of sequential centrifugation, tangential flow filtration (TFF), and size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). She also performed EV characterization using microBCA, Dot Blot (targeting markers CD9, CD63, CD81, and ALIX) and flow cytometry. The purified and characterized EVs will be used for downstream omics analyses, while the HCC1806 breast cancer cell line variants will be used for the large-scale production of EVs for future project activities.