Three researchers from the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology — Andrii Shturmak, Olha Strilbytska, and Volodymyr Shvadchak — have been selected as fellows of the EDUC-WIDE R&I Fellowships programme.
This programme is implemented within the EDUC university alliance, of which Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University is a member together with eight other European universities. The initiative supports short-term research visits to partner universities aimed at professional training and the development of scientific collaboration.
PhD student Andrii Shturmak will visit Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic), where he will spend five weeks training in a research group at the Centre for Translational Medicine. The main goal of his visit is to master a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease using rotenone, as well as advanced methods of fluorescence microscopy and immunohistochemistry to study neuronal damage and the accumulation of amyloid fibrils in the brain. These skills will complement his doctoral research and enable him to investigate the effects of polyphenols on amyloid fibril formation at a new methodological level.
PhD Olha Strilbytska will visit the research group of Cristina Cocco at the University of Cagliari (Italy). During her six-week stay, she will study advanced approaches to investigating disease pathogenesis and work towards establishing long-term collaboration between our universities in the use of molecular biomarkers for studying brain dysfunction associated with stress and neurological disorders.
PhD Volodymyr Shvadchak will undertake a four-week research visit at the Centre for Biomolecular Research at Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic). He will work with a research group specializing in molecular modelling of protein interactions, where he will gain experience in advanced bioinformatics computational methods. The main objective of his visit is to initiate mutually beneficial collaboration between the research groups in the field of molecular mechanisms of amyloid fibril growth inhibitors.
All three visits will be fully funded within the framework of the “EDUC-WIDE” project (European Union grant No. 101136533).