National Institute of Chemistry
PI: Roman Jerala
Website: https://www.ki.si/en/departments/d12-department-of-synthetic-biology-and-immunology/
A research under dr. Mateja Manček Keber is focused on extracellular vesicles and their role in innate immunity and cancer. Especially we want to determine the role of EVs in oxidative stress and subsequently in chronic diseases, where oxidative stress is a hallmark. We are interested, which components of EVs can be recognized by the innate immune receptors such as Toll-like receptors and how they contribute to sterile inflammation. Additionally, as chronic inflammation and development of cancer are tightly connected we are interested, whether EVs can act as mediators in these processes. We also use EVs in synthetic biology as carriers of Cas9 to specific tissue and organs to modulate the expression of certain genes (a research done by Duško Lainšček).