Mathematical modelling of cellular fate decision in olfactory sensory neurons
Supervisor: Dr. Antonio Scialdone
Enrolled from 2021 - 2022
I earned both my Bachelor’s (2018) and Master’s (2020) degrees in Applied Mathematics and Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. During my undergraduate studies, I was developing fast and robust computational methods for analysis of light diffraction on high gradient artificial media – metamaterials. Then, those methods laid foundation for my Master thesis on optimizing phase-change metamaterials for light manipulation and optical signals control.
Afterwards, I joined the laboratory of Dr. Antonio Scialdone at IES, HMGU, with PhD project aimed at modelling cell-fate decision in Olfactory Sensory Neurons (OSN). OSN is a peculiar system to study: an immature OSN of mouse carries about 1000 functional genes of Olfactory Receptors (OR), allowing us to sense a particular smell. Upon maturation OSN chooses only one allele of one OR gene to express in a stochastic way due to complex epigenetic processes, chromatin spatial reorganization. The goal of the PhD project is to build a polymer physics based computational model for OR gene expression and to analyze single-cell, spatial transcriptomics data for the verification of the model.