Graduate student
University of Iowa
I was born in a provincial city of Syktyvkar, in north-western Russia. After attending a local high school in Syktyvkar, I received a full-tuition scholarship from St. Olaf college in Northfield, MN and went there for my undergraduate studies in Biology in 2014. During my time there, I did research on extracellular microvesicles and their role in sexual reproduction in Tetrahymena Thermophila. After completing my undergraduate degree in 2018, I joined Cell and Developmental biology PhD program at the University of Iowa.
During my first year of graduate school, I rotated in the laboratory of Dr. Engelhardt and his collaborator Dr. Parekh. I joined both Engelhardt and Parekh labs as a graduate student in 2019 and worked or 3 research projects throughout my time there. One of the projects was determining the roles of Sox9 and Wnt signaling in glandular airway progenitors after a severe injury and Cystic Fibrosis disease setting. The project was completed resulting in a recent publication in Stem Cells (PMID: 35639980). The other project is about investigation of the function of Krt14 and Krt15 in airway basal cells in context of Bronchiolitis Obliterans – a deadly form of chronic lung allograft dysfunction that occurs in 80% of lung transplant recipients. This project is currently close to completion, with a publication in the second round of revisions at JCI insight. The third project is regarding development and evaluation of ex vivo ferret tracheal injury model and designing a novel tracheal explant holding chamber for long term air-liquid-interphase (ALI) culture. This project is being prepared for publication in Frontiers in Medicine as a methods manuscript that outlines the use of the new 3D-printed tissue trans-well device, ex vivo tracheal injury and cell engraftment model and the novel whole mount live and fixed imaging techniques.
After my PhD defense this year, I am planning on taking an interim post-doctoral position at the University of Iowa until summer 2023 after which, I am looking for a more permanent position preferably with a biotech company in Wisconsin area.