Sviatlana Shashkova

Protein aggregation occurs continuously in living organisms and is historically viewed as the pathogenesis hallmark of metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders. However, such protein “clumps” can also be beneficial and play an essential role in normal cell life and functionality, e.g. gene control. My main research interest revolves around clustering of proteins involved in gene expression regulation under various environmental stresses. To address this, I use budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model organism and combine biochemistry and molecular biology methods with super-resolution microscopy tools which allows studying biological processes directly in living cells in real time.