Anastasiia Fisiuk
Biochemistry PhD Student, Mallikaratchy Lab
CUNY School of Medicine - Expected Graduation: 2029
Objective
Looking for summer research opportunities for 2026 in the field of nucleic acid therapeutics and gene therapy. Open to learning more about companies that work in the field of gene therapy or development of nucleic acid-based treatment.
Bio
As a member of the Mallikaratchy lab, Anastasiia Fisiuk is interested in the impact of chemically modified nucleic bases on behavior and characteristics of DNA and RNA and their potential application in gene therapeutics. At the core of this study is the desire to design next-generation antisense oligonucleotides that can selectively silence disease-causing genes and expand therapeutic options for genetic disorders. To make this a reality, Anastasiia uses biophysical assays to study modified oligonucleotides, while expanding her knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry and therapeutic design and learning the novel approaches to sample preparation.
Technical Skills
Computational: PyMol, Chimera, BLAST, Microsoft Office Suite, R, GraphPad Prism
Wet Laboratory:
Biophysics & Structural Biology: X-ray crystallography; solution-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (1H/1H-15N-HSQC-TROSY NMR); UV-visible absorbance spectrophotometry; Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) microscopy; matrix-assisted laser deionization-ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS), size exclusion chromatography with multi-angle light scattering (SEC-MALS)_
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology: Molecular cloning techniques; recombinant protein expression and purification via metal affinity and size exclusion chromatography; bacterial cell culture handling, biochemical assays; sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE); agarose electrophoresis; flow cytometry
Professional Development Skills
Publications
• Lingala, S.; Fisiuk, A.; Stephen, M.; Mohanrao, R.; Klingsberg, J.; Vecchioni, S.; Volvovitz, E. S.; Rozhkov S.; Mallikaratchy, P. The modification of DNA with indole-linked nucleotides alters its sensitivity to enzymatic cleavage. Preprint at bioRxiv. (2023) doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.26.634936
Conferences
• Undergraduate Research Symposium, City College of New York, New York, NY, December 2023. Fisiuk, A. “FG219: A Heme-based PAS-HTH Transcription Factor” (lecture).
• Protein Society Annual Symposium, Boston, MA, July 2023. Siclari, J; Fisiuk, A; Rameshbabu, K; Gardner, K. H. “Uncovering the Mechanisms of Novel PAS Chemosensory Transcriptional Regulators” (poster).
• Gordon Research Conference, Newport, RI, July 2025. Lingala, S.; Fisiuk, A.; Stephen, M.; Mohanrao, R.; Klingsberg, J.; Vecchioni, S.; Volvovitz, E. S.; Rozhkov S.; Mallikaratchy, P. “The modification of DNA with indole-linked nucleotides alters its sensitivity to enzymatic cleavage” (poster)
Awards
• CUNY GC Science Scholarship
