Katarzyna Zawieracz
Graduate student
Kasia is a Ph.D. student in the Committee on Cancer Biology at The University of Chicago. She received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biotechnology at the University of Gdańsk, Poland, where she worked on biochemical characteristics of human protein CLPB involved in MEGCANN syndrome. As a part of her Master’s degree, she participated in the BioLAB program organized by The Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission at The University of Chicago. There, she worked with Dr. Ernst Lengyel on potential metastasis suppressor genes in ovarian cancer and targeting a stromal methyltransferase, NNMT, with small-molecule inhibitors in mouse models. In the McNerney lab Kasia is studying the role of CUX1 in maintenance and differentiation of intestinal stem cells. In 2023, Kasia recieved the Mary Ellen Connellan Scholarship for Cancer Biology, the Short Talk Prize at FASEB SRC The Gastrointestinal Epithelium Conference, and the FASEB Journal Early Career Researcher Award.