We are happy to inform that Dr. Lesia Kolomiiets, a member of the Laboratory of Biological Chemistry of Metal Ions, has been awarded a prestigious EMBO Solidarity Grant for 2024. Such funding is offered on a highly competitive basis to scientists displaced by armed conflicts.

Dr. Lesia Kolomiiets received her Ph.D. title at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv in 2021 for her work on the nanocomposite complex of antitumor cytokine EMAP II. She arrived in Warsaw with her two daughters in April 2022 and undertook collaboration with Dr. Igor Zhukov and the research group of Prof. Wojciech Bal thanks to financial support from IBB PAS for people who moved from Ukraine (IBB START Program). Her studies included structural aspects of the proteins AIMP1 and EMAP II and applications of 19F NMR in structural research, including the expression of fluorinated proteins. The EMBO grant will empower her to pursue the project «Inhibition of aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis by interaction of silver ions and nanoparticles with EMAP II and AIMP1 proteins» as part of a broader research program to elucidate the mechanisms of toxicity
of silver ions and nanoparticles and means of their prevention.
Congratulations!