By the decision of the Jury of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women and Science program, Magdalena Dąbrowska was among this year’s winners, receiving a doctoral scholarship. This means that the project of our Ph.D. student, concerning the use of genome editing tools in the experimental therapy of polyglutamine diseases (polyQ), was rated as one of the best by an external team of experts.

The program has been supporting talented women for two decades by awarding scholarships and promoting their achievements in the field of life sciences. The program also aims to encourage female researchers to continue their work aimed at the development of science and to provide financial support. In Poland, the program has been running since 2001. Its organizers are: L’Oréal Polska with the Polish Committee for UNESCO and the Ministry of Education and Science, and from 2016 also the Polish Academy of Sciences. Annual scholarships are awarded to six female scientists: 3 postdoctoral scientists, 2 Ph.D. students and 1 graduate student.

Magdalena Dąbrowska is preparing her PhD thesis at the Department of Genomic Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Marta Olejniczak. In her research she uses the CRISPR-Cas technology to adjust the length of the CAG repeat sequence in cells obtained from patients suffering from polyQ diseases. The CRISPR-Cas9 system is molecular scissors that make cuts at a specific location in the genome. Thanks to this, this method is used, among others in creating new cell and animal models or in the therapy of genetic diseases.