The first Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM) awarded by the CardioRNA COST Action was completed on January 15, 2019, just ahead of the 2^nd CardioRNA meeting in Lisbon. The awarded Early Career Investigator (ECI) was Dr. Amela Jusic, from University of Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dr. Amela spent two weeks with the Cardiovascular Research Unit at the Luxembourg Institute of Health, Luxembourg, to develop her STSM entitled “Non-coding RNAs Expression Profiling in Cardiovascular Diseases.”

The main aim of the visit was to develop a collaboration with the host institution, where Dr. Jusic learned laboratory methods used for non-coding RNA expression profiling in cardiovascular diseases extracted from different human samples.

Based on the experience and knowledge acquired, she plans to establish a research group in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This multidisciplinary group will include experienced researchers from the Human molecular genetics field and cardiovascular disease clinics and polyclinics from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aim will be to introduce new methods to identify molecular biomarkers in cardiovascular diseases, particularly for hypertension – a highly prevalent condition in Bosnia and Herzegovina – and to expand collaborations with other higher education institutions, university clinical centres and institutes in the country.

Building such an interdisciplinary group will represent a significant result of the COST Action and will contribute to its goal to share knowledge and expertise, as well as to engage in international and multidisciplinary collaborations.

Dr. Amela will present the results from her experiments performed during the STSM and share her experience with the other members of the Action during the 2^nd CardioRNA COST Action MC and WG meeting in Lisbon on February 13-15, 2019.