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Background 

Prerna Karthaka is from India where she did her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biotechnology at the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT). She pursued her Master’s thesis at the i3S/INEB Institutes as an Erasmus exchange student at the University of Porto, Portugal, in the field of hematopoietic stromal/stem cell expansion in murine fetal livers. During her studies, she briefly interned at Biocon Limited, a pharmaceutical company in India, and the Medical Center of the RGO in Muscat Oman, to gain some experience in industry as well as medical laboratories.

PhD project: A comparative multi-omics analysis of extracellular matrix components involved in fibrosis and scarless skin regeneration in Mus and Acomys

Prerna is enrolled at the LMU Munich and primarily works at the Helmholtz Munich. During her PhD, she focusses on the development and application of a histology-directed workflow for the molecular analysis of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins in a skin regeneration animal model, and in in vitro human fetal/adult fibroblasts. The main aim of the project is the molecular characterisation of scarless skin regeneration in vivo (spiny mouse) and in vitro (human fibroblasts) in order to shed light on the ECM protein changes occurring during a skin regeneration process, using state of the art mass spectrometry workflows including optimized methods for analysis of ECM in tissues that have been successfully used by Dr. Herbert Schiller for lung, aorta, liver and brain.

During her PhD study, Prerna visits the following consortium partners to fulfill the objectives below; University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, the Association of Dutch Burn Centers, Beverwijk, the Netherlands and CUTISS, Zürich, Switzerland.

Objectives

1. Make a direct comparison between the matrix components of the African spiny mouse (Acomys, partner UALG) and the ordinary mouse (Mus)
2. Make a direct comparison between the matrix produced in vitro by fetal (“scarless”) and adult (“scarring”) human fibroblasts (partner AmsterdamUMC).
3. Make a direct comparison of the ECM composition in regenerating fetal skin with scarring adult skin in Mus (partner HMGU/Rinkevich).

Supervisors

• Dr. Herbert Schiller
• Dr. Janine Gote-Schniering

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Contact: Prerna.Karthaka#helmholtz-muenchen.de

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