Dr. Lea Rems and dr. Shaurya Sachdev (photo: Janez Kotar)
Publish Date: 04.08.2021
Category: Researchers in focus , ERC & MSCA, Our contribution to sustainable development goals
Sustainable development goals: 3 Good health and well-being (Indicators)
Dr. Lea Rems and dr. Shaurya Sachdev have received the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie for research related to electroporation. Electroporation is a method where short electric pulses are applied to achieve increased uptake of various molecules into biological cells. It is used in medicine, biology and biotechnology, for example for introducing genetic material into cells or for nonthermal ablation of tumors and cardiac tissue. Both projects will be carried out in the years 2021-2023 in the Laboratory of Biocybernetics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana under the mentorship of prof. Dr. Damijan Miklavčič.
The aim of dr. Rems’ project is to understand the relationship between ion channels in the cell membrane, prolonged membrane depolarization following electroporation, and cell survival after electroporation. The project of dr. Sachdev aims to provide a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms underlying gene electrotransfer using principles of polymer physics, soft matter and statistical mechanics. In their projects, dr. Rems and dr. Sachdev will apply various experimental and computational methods, including experiments on cell cultures and tissues, mathematical modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations. Both projects will bring new knowledge, which is needed for development of gene therapies and vaccines, methods for tumor ablation and for treatments of heart arrhythmias.
Researchers
Dr. Lea Rems comes from Slovenia and has completed her PhD at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Ljubljana. With her fellowship she is returning home after 5 years of postdoc at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. She is an expert on molecular mechanisms of electroporation and she is currently trying to understand how these mechanisms translate into the biological response of cells to electroporation.
(photo: Janez Kotar)
Dr. Shaurya Sachdev comes from India and has completed his PhD at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. His background in chemical engineering and his expertise on transport phenomena, statistical mechanics and polymer physics gives him a unique opportunity to address important questions on DNA transport during electroporation in the complex tissue environment. His research focuses on understanding and overcoming barriers that limit DNA delivery and transfection efficiency by electroporation in vitro and in vivo.
(photo: Janez Kotar)
Prof. dr. Damijan Miklavčič is a world-leading expert on electroporation. In the past 25 years he has contributed, in collaboration with a number of groups around the world, to a better understanding of electroporation on membrane, cell and tissue level, which has enabled the translation of electroporation into clinical practice. He is leading a truly interdisciplinary team of biomedical engineers, electronics engineers, chemists, physicists, biologists, and microbiologists, who respect each other and have developed a common language.
(photo: Janez Kotar)