Since 2023 - PhD student in the Brennecke lab, IMBA, Vienna BioCenter, Austria

2022 - 2023 - Intern  in the Brennecke lab, IMBA, Vienna BioCenter, Austria

2020 - 2022 - Master's student at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia

2020 - 2021 - Bioinformatics Institute student in Moscow, Russia

2018 - 2022 - Student in the lab of Molecular Mechanisms of Biological Adaptation in The Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russia 

2016 - 2020 - Bachelor's student  at  Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia

• Laureate of the Abramov scholarship fund for academic achievement (Foundation for the Development of Innovation Education) in 2018 and 2019, Russia

• Third place in the International Summer School Scientific Competition, Mainz, Germany 2021

My research is focused on LTR (Long terminal repeat) retrotransposons, which are repetitive sequences that make up a significant proportion of all eukaryotic genomes. To be successful parasites and multiply their genomic copies in future generations, LTR retrotransposons tend to be active in animal gonads, which is well studied in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. While many mobile genetic elements have adapted their promoter sequences to be expressed in germline cells, in contrast, a remarkable clade of Errantiviruses is expressed in somatic cells surrounding the germline. Errantiviruses have developed a clever strategy to infect developing oocytes from surrounding follicular cells, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying this infection remain poorly understood. Additionally, a notable finding is the presence of a third open reading frame encoding a product resembling the envelope of F-type baculoviruses. However, conflicting data exist regarding its necessity during the infection process in Drosophila, and key questions remain unanswered: Is the env gene product required for Errantivirus infectivity in the Drosophila ovary? Which cellular pathways are being hijacked by Errantiviruses for their soma-to-germline transfer? What are the molecular mechanisms underlying infectivity? In my PhD, I aim to shed more light on these aspects, which is an important contribution to the fields of transposable element biology and virology.