Natasa Anastasov

The main focus of our research is to develop a radiobiological understanding of response to ionizing radiation on the molecular, cellular and physiological level, and to utilize this knowledge in designing new strategies for the treatment of cancer. Radiation can affect a variety of processes in exposed cells causing cell cycle arrest and apoptotic cell death. On the other hand, radiotherapy, either alone or in combination with surgery or chemotherapy, is one of the major modalities used for detecting and fighting human malignancies. However, development of radioresistance in cancer cells presents a difficult problem in the course of treatment, which makes understanding the underlying mechanisms of radiation much more imperative. We have profound experience and expertise in the design of lentiviral vectors and their usage for shRNA and miRNA analysis. Lentiviruses are an efficient gene delivery tool because of their ability to efficiently transduce both dividing and non-dividing target cell populations. Additionally, their capacity to establish long-lasting transgene expression due to chromosomal integration of the proviral DNA makes this technique attractive for functional genomics. In cooperation with Sirion and Insphero Biotech companies we are developing breast cancer cellular models in three dimensions (3D) to functionally characterize changes induced after irradiation on miRNAome, transcriptome and proteome.