Anna Bartosik
Anna Bartosik, a third-year PhD candidate in the Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics Program at the University of Virginia, was invited to present her research at the biannual FASEB Science Research Conference on Dynamic DNA Structures in Biology. This prestigious conference, held in July in Melbourne, Florida, gathered over 100 trainees, faculty, and scientists from the U.S. and Europe who are leaders in the field of DNA and RNA structures and their roles in cancer and triplet-repeat diseases.
Out of a competitive pool of 49 submitted abstracts, Anna was invited to give both a short talk and a poster presentation. Her presentation, which highlighted groundbreaking research on the contribution of DNA secondary structures to genome instability in the context of cancer immunotherapy, captured the audience and earned her the award for the best talk among the 17 other trainees. In addition, Anna was honored with a travel award from the UVA Cancer Center, reflecting the significance of her research and the support from UVA for emerging scientists.
Anna conducts her research under the mentorship of Yuh-Hwa Wang, PhD, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Her journey at UVA began through the Visiting Research Graduate Traineeship Program (aka BioLab) in 2020-2021, facilitated by the Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission, where she first engaged with the UVA research community. Her work is a collaborative effort involving Marty Mayo, PhD, from the BMG department, Aakrosh Ratan, PhD. from the Department of Genome Sciences, and Phillip Smaldino, PhD. from Ball State University.
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