Main Host Institution: University of Plovdiv (UP) – Bulgaria.

Host Lab: Dept. of Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics Lab.

Project’s  Supervisor: Dr. Vesselin Baev, co-supervisor: Prof. Dr. Galina Yahubyan.

PhD Institution: Amsterdam UMC – The Netherlands.

PhD’s Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Thomas Würdinger, co-supervisor: Dr. Danijela Koppers-Lalic, Dr. Vesselin Baev.

Project Title: Comprehensive RNA analysis in liquid biopsy components from NSCLC patients.

Project Background: In ELBA project we aim to develop and validate new next-generation liquid biopsy tests for the detection and selection of NSCLC. The application of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies for detection of tumor-specific genomic alterations within the blood of patients with cancer is arguably one of the most potentially impactful advances in recent years. Moreover, recently published reports show that the small RNA NGS profile of these non-invasive sources can function as a biomarker for cancer detection and classification and can be used to develop biopsy tests.

Project Aim:

• NGS data selection, quality assessment, and database of the provided small RNA-seq datasets.
• miRNA sequencing profiles of non-invasive liquid biopsies in NSCLC.
• Optimizing existing workflows for small RNA analysis and developing a new computational tool in-line with liquid biopsy.