Daria Matvienko

Daria has completed her BSc and MSc in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Novosibirsk State University, Russia.

Her Master’s project was related to chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) immunotherapy for solid cancers. In particular, the project was aimed at developing and comparing immune cells expressing CARs that are specific to prostate cancer and have different structural designs. The results of her work have been published recently. Moreover, Daria actively presented her findings at various conferences for young scientists, where many of her presentations were awarded the best prize.

She also participated in two internships at UMCG in the Netherlands and IST Austria, where she worked in autoimmunity, developmental and stem cell biology.

Throughout her study and work experience, she gained a great interest in the molecular mechanisms of cancer and different therapeutic modalities for cancer prevention.

As a PhD student in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Cathrin Brisken, she will work on a better understanding of the biological effects that hormones promote in the breast epithelium at different breast cancer (BC) progression stages. By using patient-derived intraductal xenograft models she will determine the importance of hormones receptor signaling in BC progression and try to find possible targets for personalized endocrine prevention of BC.