Aleksandra Skrajna, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been awarded a three-year post-doctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society.
The fellowship, worth over $150,000 over three years, supports the training of promising post-doctoral scientists in preparation for independent careers in cancer research.
Skrajna works in the lab of Robert McGinty, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor at the School and an associate Lineberger member. Skrajna’s research is focused on how enzymes bind to our genetic material in cells to ensure that our genes are expressed appropriately.
“By understanding how these enzymes function in normal cells, we can gain insights into how improper function leads to cancer, with a long-term goal of developing new cancer diagnostic tools and treatments,” she said.
Skrajna completed her Ph.D. in the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2016. Her thesis studies were undertaken as a collaborative project under supervision of Michal Dadlez, Ph.D., at the Polish Academy of Sciences and Zbigniew Dominski, Ph.D., at the UNC School of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
Skrajna joined the McGinty laboratory for her post-doctoral studies in 2017, where she has conducted research under McGinty and Ben Major, Ph.D., an associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology.