Ewa Szymanek

I am a PhD student at the University of Warsaw, working in molecular oncology with a focus on non-invasive cancer diagnostics, liquid biopsy, and cancer genetics. My research focuses on understanding the molecular changes occurring during cancer progression and treatment, with particular interest in tumor heterogeneity, treatment resistance, and mechanisms of tumor cell adaptation and escape.

My work focuses on the molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) as a minimally invasive source of information about the evolving tumor. I am interested in identifying genetic and transcriptomic changes in CTCs that may reflect tumor progression, treatment resistance, and changes in tumor cell states. My current work combines CTC isolation and enrichment, immunophenotyping, single-cell RNA sequencing, whole-exome sequencing, and genomic and transcriptomic data analysis.

I have a background in molecular genetics and biotechnology, with experience in hereditary and rare genetic diseases, molecular diagnostics, DNA analysis, and cancer genetics. I have since expanded my expertise into single-cell technologies, transcriptomic analysis, bioinformatics, and the development and optimization of workflows for the molecular characterization of rare tumor cell populations.

As part of my role in the laboratory, I coordinate collaborations with external research and clinical centers, particularly hospitals, facilitating access to patient-derived samples and supporting the translation of laboratory methods into clinically relevant research. This work allows me to build collaborations between researchers and clinicians and to develop projects based on clinically relevant material. I am open to new collaborations and can be contacted regarding research projects involving patient samples, liquid biopsy, molecular diagnostics, and cancer research.