New research with NSC funding

Klaudia Staszak, M.Sc., carrying out her doctoral project in the Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Genomics under the scientific supervision of Professor Izabela Makalowska, was the winner of the PRELUDIUM 21 competition conducted by the National Science Center. The project entitled “Retrogenes as important players in cancer regulatory pathways” took second place in the life sciences panel.

Ms. Staszak will undertake a large-scale analysis of the retrogene expression profile in human tumors to determine if there is a link between the high percentage of retrocopy and neoplastic changes in humans. The project will be based on the bioinformatic analysis of transcriptomic data (RNA-Seq) from the repositories, such as The Cancer Genome Atlas, as well as experimental research, to decipher the functional meaning of selected retrogenes. The obtained results will be collected in the form of a database illustrating the retrogene expression profile in human cancer.

In this edition of the PRELUDIUM competition, NCN received 2163 applications, while 258 of them were qualified for funding, which translates into a 12% success rate. The winners of this edition will receive more than PLN 41.2 million for the implementation of their projects.

Official information on the results is available on the National Science Center website.