Arianna Skirzynska

PhD Candidate, 2020 – Present

Project

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common type of malignant brain tumour which maintains a median survival of just 15 months. One major cause of treatment failure and high recurrence rates is the aggressive diffuse invasion of glioma cells to the surrounding brain parenchyma which enable tumours to evade therapeutic chemotherapy treatments. To date, this poorly understood cell invasion process has not been mimicked in vitro, hindering the development of effective treatments to combat this disease. I am particularly interested in the development of brain tissue-mimetic hydrogel scaffolds to study inter- and intra- patient heterogeneity, focusing on factors which influence cell invasion.

Education

Ph.D. Student (2020 – Present)
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
University of Toronto

Bachelor of Applied Science, Honours (2015 – 2020)
Nanotechnology Engineering
University of Waterloo

Awards

CGS-D through NSERC (2022)
Colin Hahnemann Bayley Fellowship (2021)
Cecil Yip Doctoral Research Award (2021)
CGS-M through CIHR (2020)