BCSC Alexandra Carrell PhD Studentship Tjaša Bensa has started her PhD in Dr Emanuel Rognoni's lab at the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research, Blizard Institute.
PhD student Tjaša Bensa
My name is Tjaša (pronounced like Tyasha). I studied Biochemistry and finished my BSc and MSc at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Afterwards, I moved to London to do an internship at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, focusing on circadian rhythms and sleep–wake profiles in mice. For the last few years, I have been working as a research assistant in the Professor Fiona Watt lab at the Centre for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, King’s College London. My research topic was studying the interactions between lung epithelial stem cells and lung fibroblasts.
I am now very excited that I have been selected for a BCSC Alexandra Carrell PhD Studentship to start my PhD in Dr Emanuel Rognoni's lab at the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research, Blizard Institute. My project will explore how cells surrounding the tumour – termed cancer associated fibroblasts (CAF) – influence cancer cell behaviour of the skin. CAFs have a central role in promoting tumour development in many cancers, however our limited functional understanding of these cells is limiting the development of CAF-targeted cancer therapies. Using new 3D-culture models I will screen CAFs from premalignant, non-invasive and invasive squamous carcinomas (SCC) with healthy and cancer derived epidermal cells for their ability to support tumour development. Next, I will use a state-of-the-art sequencing approach to reveal potential master regulators of cancer-promoting CAF behaviour, which will be functionally analysed in our 3D culture model.
My goal is to define and manipulate the molecular mechanisms that maintain and differentiate pathological CAF behaviours which will support the development of new CAF-targeted therapies in SCC and potentially other cancer types. I am really looking forward to meeting everyone!