Martin Burkert joined the Waszak group as a postdoc in February 2021. His research focuses on the cell-of-origin of pediatric brain tumours. He comments:
- I was honored to receive the Scientia Fellows fellowship for my postdoctoral research project on the cell-of-origin of pediatric brain tumors. Pediatric brain tumors were started to be described genetically but little is known about the cellular origin of these tumors in the developing brain.
- In the future, precise characterization of the cell type of origin may provide better treatment plans to improve life expectancy for patients diagnosed with these mostly devastating diseases. In the course of the next three years the fellowship will help me to develop computational tools for the prediction of cell types by integrating single-cell epigenomes of healthy cells and tissues with genetic profiles of brain tumors.
- I am very pleased to be able to carry out this work at NCMM in the Sebastian Waszak's research group, which has strong expertise in the field of computational oncology in general and its application to pediatric brain tumors specifically.
About the Scientia Fellows Postodoctoral Fellowship
Scientia Fellows is a research fellowship programme co-funded by the EU. It aims to enhance research excellence, internationalisation, mobility, career training, networking and cross-sectoral collaboration within health life sciences.
Learn more via the UiO.no Scientia Fellows webpage.