Page 5 - The Hormel Institute 2024 Annual Report

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Assistant Professor
Background and Experience
I received my PhD in physiology in Russia. I then completed postdoctoral training in lung pathobiology at the Department of Medicine, University of Arizona, and continued my postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego, where I identified microRNA-29b as a new target to potentially develop therapeutically effective treatment strategies for patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension.
My research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals in the field including
Hypertension, Circulation Research, American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, and British Journal of Pharmacology. Additionally, I presented my research every year at American Thoracic Society (ATS) or American Physiological Society (APS) annual meetings. My works have been recognized with abstract scholarship by ATS Assembly on Pulmonary Circulation and with the Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Award by APS Women in Physiology Committee. Also, I was invited by APS to serve as a judge for the Barbara A. Horwitz and John M. Horowitz Undergraduate Research Awards during Experimental Biology meetings. I have served as a manuscript reviewer for American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology, Aging and Disease, and Pulmonary Circulation. I was selected for 2021 ATS New Faculty Boot Camp, which helped me prepare for the transition from postdoctoral training to independent faculty position.
Now, at HI, my research focuses on molecular and cellular mechanisms involved with pulmonary vascular remodeling in
pulmonary hypertension (abnormally high blood pressure in the lungs) in order to dis- cover new targets and effective treatment options for patients.
Why I Chose The Hormel Institute
HI provides a unique opportunity to perform close interdisciplinary collabora- tions with researchers in other fields such as structural biology, computational biology, viral biology, or cancer. Also, ongoing collaborations with Mayo Clinic, a longstanding collaborating partner of The Hormel Institute, is critical for my transla- tional research on pulmonary hypertension.
Assistant Professor
Background and Experience
I am a molecular biologist who uses functional genomics approaches to find new genes and biological mechanisms that affect metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes. Before coming here, I completed my undergraduate studies in Poland, my PhD studies in the United Kingdom, and an eight-year-long postdoctoral training
at Stanford University in California.
My varied experience to date also spans
developmental biology, cancer biology, and
systems biology. I primarily work with cell
culture systems and murine models of
metabolic disease. What I particularly like
about my field of study is how varied my day-to-day working life is: I can be coding in the morning and doing functional murine studies in the afternoon. I also get to collaborate with many people from adjacent fields, like cancer biology, biochemistry, or computational biology.
Why I Chose The Hormel Institute
The Hormel Institute has the institutional environment I have been looking for. It is interdisciplinary and ambitious but also collaborative and supportive.
I quickly realized this when I was interviewing.
Of all the places I interviewed, I received the most feedback on my proposed research plans here, which was a strong indicator of the support I could expect as a future faculty member.
In addition, metabolic research on murine models requires expensive specialized pieces of equipment like Echo-MRI or metabolic chambers, which are easily available to my group but are usually in short supply at bigger places. There
are also other reasons: the track record of the previous assistant professors at the Institute is very strong, and the rules and expectations for advancing in my career made sense to me.
I also like living in Minnesota, which reminds me a lot of where I grew up in Poland. Plus, I get to live on a 13-acre farm while working at a world-class university!