Kinga Westphal, Ph.D –engages in quantitative and qualitative assessment of UV/radio-induced damage in double or single stranded DNA labeled with modified nucleobases. In her studies she applies a number of techniques including qPCR, HPLC and LC/MS. The results of her research were presented at many national and international conferences. In 2014 she took an internship held under the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union Seventh Framework Program – “NanoBRIDGES – building bridges between specialists on computational and empirical risk assessment of engineered nanomaterials”. She also obtained the research grant within competition for the University of Gdańsk young scientists. Winner of competition for the best master’s thesis organized by Polish Chemical Society (branch in Gdańsk). Member of Polish Mass Spectrometry Society.
Paweł Wityk, Ph.D, Eng. – specializes in studying foto- and radiodamege to the native or labeled DNA molecules alone or interacting with proteins/peptides. In his research he uses a teoretical and experimental approchaches by means of: theoretical work – molecular dynamics (MD), ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) and combined approach – quantum mechanisc/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) and in experimental work – CLICK reaction for covalently bound DNA/peptides conjugates and a wide range of analitical methods (HPLC, CD, nano-DSC, microLC-MS and gel electrophoresis).
Justyna Wiczk, Ph.D. – engaged in qualitative and quantitative assesment of the impact of the type of sensitizer and its local surroundings in DNA on the performance of photo- and radiodamage formation. In her research she makes use of real-time PCR, denaturing high performance liquid chomatography (DHPLC), gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. She is a scholar of the project “The development of the University of Gdansk in the areas of 2020 (UG 2020)” (2014).
Kamila Butowska, MSc – engaged in experimental studies on radiosensitizing properties of oxygen mimetics, mainly metronidazole. She won the AMBER competition co-financed by the European Union under the European Social Fund. She did a one-month-long research stay in Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich (Germany). She is a member of the Student’s Sciencific Association of Chemistry and of the Chemistry Department Student ‘s Selfgovernment Council at University of Gdańsk. MAESTRO fellowship.
Łukasz Golon, MSc – his interests concern the methods of density functional theory and hybrid QM/MM methods. He works on describing the radiosensitizing properties of modified nucleosides. At the moment he’s focused on modeling enzymatic reactions leading to their incorporation into nuclear DNA. Winner of Award for the Best Graduate of Master’s Studies in Chemistry at University of Gdańsk (2013). He has completed a two month COST STSM research stay at Analytical Biochemistry Group, University of Groningen, investigating the possibility of electrochemical inducement of the damage in 5-bromo-2’-deoxyuridine labeled DNA. He is the principal investigator of Young Scientist Grant at the University of Gdańsk, titled Investigation of the enzymatic phosphorylation of thymidine and its potentially radio- or photosensitizing analogues.