Svitlana Prylutska
Fellow 2024/2025
Biology
Department of Physiology, Biochemistry of Plants and Bioenergetics, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv
Volkswagen Stiftung
psvit_1977@ukr.net
Bio
Svitlana Prylutska is a Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology, Biochemistry of Plants, and Bioenergetics at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. She specializes in biochemistry, nanobiotechnology, and phyto/ecobiotechnology.
She obtained her Bachelor’s and Specialist degrees in biochemistry from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU) in 2001 and 2002, respectively. She continued her postgraduate studies at KNU, earning a PhD in biochemistry in 2008 and later a Doctor of Sciences (Dr. rer. nat. habil.) in biotechnology in 2020.
Her academic career began at KNU, where she worked as an engineer and later as a research fellow at the Faculty of Chemistry from 2004 to 2020. Since 2021, she has been a professor at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.
Prylutska has received numerous research fellowships, including DAAD, DFG, BMBF, and NRFU grants, as well as scholarships from INTAS and ALLEA. Her contributions have been recognized with awards from the Kyiv City Administration, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She has been a member of the Ukrainian Biochemical Society since 2002.
A Novel Strategy for Cancer Therapy: Enhancing the Antitumor Effect of Doxorubicin by Immobilizing on Graphene Oxide
The aim of the project is to create a new water-soluble nanocomplex, a graphene oxide (GO) loaded with Doxorubicin (Dox) molecules (GO-Dox), and to develop on its basis an effective nanobiotechnology for tumor cells destruction. This project is multidisciplinary and requires expertise in the complementary fields of nanochemistry and nanophysics, biochemical and biophysical screenings. Specifically, a creation of highly stable water-soluble GO-Dox nanocomplex by using ultrasonic technology, their characterization by using the electron and probe microscopy (HRTEM and AFM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), UV/Vis and FTIR spectroscopy. Finally, the biological experiments with newly created nanoparticles will be performed, in which their uptake and distribution in cell will be studied by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), and the toxicity (Live/Dead and MTT/PrestoBlue assay) and molecular anticancer mechanism of biocompatible GO-Dox nanocomplex will be evaluated in in vitro systems.
Thus, the novelty of this project lies in carrying out systemic and comprehensive studies on the preparation and characterization of highly purified and homogeneous in size aqueous dispersions of GO and GO-Dox, assessment of their intracellular localization, toxicity relative to normal and cancer cells, as well as elucidation of the potential mechanism antitumor effect of the newly created GO-Dox nanocomplex.
Summarizing, the results obtained within this research project will contribute to a better understanding of molecular mechanism of anticancer activity for water-soluble GO-Dox nanocomplex in vitro systems (fundamental problem). In addition, the GO-nanoplatform biotechnology will be developed for targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to tumor cells in order to increase the effectiveness of their anticancer effect (applied problem).