Our Team

Andrew M. Hoffman, DVM, DVSc, Diplomate, ACVIM (PI)

Dr. Andrew Hoffman, the Gilbert S. Kahn Dean of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, is an acclaimed researcher, clinician, teacher, and mentor. Dr. Hoffman contributes extensively to veterinary research, teaching, and clinical care. His leadership of regenerative medicine and stem cell research programs resulted in important contributions to both animal and human health, demonstrating the profoundly positive impact of veterinary research. He regularly mentored faculty with an interest in clinical translational research and helped colleagues fully appreciate the career options available to them thanks to the versatile skills provided by a veterinary education.

While at Tufts University, Dr. Hoffman helped to build and lead the first outpatient pulmonary function testing laboratory for equine and canine patients in the world, which provided world-class care for animal patients while also making important contributions in developing animal models of human pulmonary disease.

The ongoing revolution in the treatment of severe human emphysema – increasing length and quality of life for patients and decreasing the morbidity and mortality of lung volume reduction treatment – traces in part to the work of Hoffman and his colleagues. An accomplished scholar and clinician, Dr. Hoffman served as director of the Tufts Regenerative Medicine Laboratory as well as the Stem Cell Laboratory. He led the Tufts Lung Function Laboratory for more than 20 years and also served for five years as director of the Tufts Equine Sports Medicine Program.

Dr. Hoffman is a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, past president of the Veterinary Comparative Research Society, and a member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. His research programs have received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health for nearly 20 years. He has authored more than 100 publications, including many in leading scientific and clinical journals. Hoffman earned his undergraduate degree with honors in biology from the University of Delaware, received his veterinary degree from Cornell University, and holds a doctorate in veterinary science from the University of Guelph in Canada.

Luca Musante, PhD, Director, EVC

The Extracellular Vesicles Core Director, Luca, received his B.S in Biological Sciences at the University of Genova, Italy. He then received a M.S in Biochemistry and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Pavia and finally he received his Doctorate in Experimental Medicine at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy.

Dr. Musante has authored 69 peer reviewed publications (NCBI) and presented his research at national and international conferences.

He started to study urinary Extracellular Vesicles (uEVs) in diabetes back in 2009, in the laboratory directed by Dr. Harry Holthöfer at Dublin City University, Ireland. He developed and implemented a novel method - Hydrostatic Filtration Dialysis (HFD)- to optimized urinary extracellular vesicle recovery during the centrifugation step to overcome the biological variability associated with this biofluid maximizings recovery of representative vesicle populations without requiring biobanking large volumes of urine.

Dr. Musante joined Dr. Uta Erdbrügger’s group at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in 2016 to investigate the role of plasma and uEVs in hypertension and related kidney complication both in human and animal models of disease. Dr. Musante has acquired extensive experience in EVs separation by centrifugation, density and size exclusion chromatography. He has been working on state-of-the-art analytical platforms currently available to for EV analysis, such as Microfluidic/Tunable Resistive Pulse Sensing (MRPS and TRSP), Nano Track Analysis (NTA), Flow Cytometry , and Single Particle Interferometric Reflectance Imaging Sensor (SP-IRIS), which allows multiplexed phenotyping with minimal sample processing to analyze Extracellular Vesicles.

Dr. Musante has also documented lab skills training of scientists and all level students (senior and junior PhDs, MS students, undergrads).

Finally, Dr. Musante is a strong believer in following strict analysis protocols for the preparation and characterization of EV samples to produce reliable, replicable results encouraging exchange of information and promoting scientific collaborations. Guidelines are available in positional papers issued in the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (JEV) and endorsed by the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV).