Liquid Biopsy for Acute Trauma:
Decoding RNA and protein dynamics in CNS injury

My approach to science is rooted in my upbringing in Siberia and years of competitive athletics and backcountry expeditions across the Altai Mountains. When a career-ending spinal injury abruptly halted my athletic path, I redirected that competitive endurance toward academic research. Wilderness expeditions taught me a permanent lesson: meaningful breakthroughs demand disciplined, consistent effort long before the finish line is in sight.

During my Master's research at UCT Prague investigating metallic nanoparticles on plant cytoskeletons (Plants 2022), measuring microtubule regrowth via FRAP kymography across thousands of confocal frames manually was unsustainable. Unable to find pre-built tools, I automated the workflows using ImageJ/Fiji macros and R scripts. Saving hundreds of hours proved the transformative power of code and permanently directed my career toward computational biology.

Transitioning to acute neurotrauma research at the Institute of Biotechnology CAS (BIOCEV) gave this computational focus direct translational weight. My personal history with severe physical injury meant that clinical metadata and expression tables were never abstract numbers—they represented human physiological trajectories. Today, my doctoral research focuses on modeling temporal multi-omic networks of acute injury.

Neuroscience historically prioritized neurons, but glial populations (NG2 glia, oligodendrocytes, reactive astrocytes) define the biochemical microenvironment of the damaged CNS. Our work in Glia (2021) and Frontiers (2022) mapped how transient glial subpopulations emerge post-injury, identifying critical tipping points between scar formation and axonal regeneration.