I earned my Master degree at Charles University in Prague in the field of Cell and Developmental Biology. After that, I continued at Charles University doing my PhD focusing on the role of integrin signalling in regulation of cell motility and mechanotransduction. Then I moved to USA to do my postdoc at Columbia and Yale Universities, researching on various hallmarks of cancer such as genomic instability, oncogenic signalling, cancer metabolism or cell cycle regulation. Finally, in September 2019, I started at Institute for Research in Biomedicine as a BIST postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Francesc Posas. Here I am studying the regulation of cell cycle through Rb in response to environmental stress.

Exploiting a novel regulatory mechanism of Retinoblastoma as a therapeutic strategy for treatment of breast cancer.

My project focuses on the posttranslational modification – phosphorylation of N-terminal part of Retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (Rb) and the biological effects of this modification. The Rb tumor suppressor protein is a major negative regulator of cell cycle, which binds and inhibits the transcriptional activity of E2F transcription factors. The pathways regulating Rb activity are dysregulated in majority of cancers, which results in inactivation of Rb and hyperproliferation. Previous research of my current lab showed that stress-induced phosphorylation of N-terminal part of Rb protein, arrests cells in cell cycle leading to impaired proliferation. Thus, the main focus of my project is characterization of the interaction of N-terminal part of Rb with its binding partner E2F1 and the resulting biological consequences. Furthermore, this information will be further used to discover compounds that could stimulate or mimic the interaction between E2F1 and Rb and inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells, possibly having a therapeutical application.