About our research

About Anna Popova

Our research is focused on developing highly miniaturized in vitro systems for high-throughput biological screenings and personalized oncology. We work with the novel Droplet Microarray (DMA) chip, which is based on hydrophilic-superhydrophobic patterning and consists of an array of hydrophilic spots on a superhydrophobic background. Due to the extreme difference in wettability between hydrophilic and superhydrophobic areas, it is possible to form arrays of stable nanoliter droplets on a completely planar surface without any physical barriers. The volume of the droplets depends on the area of the hydrophilic spot, and for our systems, varies from 100 to 1000 nL. Nanoliter droplets can serve as miniaturized reservoirs for culturing cells and performing different types of cell-based high-throughput screenings. The DMA platform is compatible with all kinds of cell culture models, including adherent and suspension cells, 3D spheroids, and hydrogel-based 3D cell culture.

In our group we have a number of topics:

·       Personalized oncology: developing highly miniaturized protocols and workflows for personalized drug sensitivity and resistance testing of patient-derived cancer cells

·      Seq-from-a-Chip: developing protocols for nucleic acid isolation and manipulation from live cells cultured on a chip in nanolitre droplets, followed by sequencing

·         Proteomics-from-a-Chip: developing protocols for protein isolation and digestion from live cells followed by LC-MS analysis of cell proteome

·        Electrode-DMA (eDMA): label-free real-time monitoring of cells using microelectrode arrays (MEAs) on DMA in nanolitre high throughput formats

·       Complex 3D cell culture models (spheroids, organoids, tumoroids, co-culture cell systems, hydrogels-based 3D cell culture models) in high throughput nanolitre format

·        hiPSC (human induced pluripotent stem cells): developing assays for high throughput screening of hiPSC against different stimuli with the aim to control pluripotency and differentiation of hiPSCs

·    Microbiological applications and multi-drug resistance: high throughput antibiotic screenings & personalized antibiotic sensitivity test.

Curriculum Vitae

2014 - present

Project Leader at Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems - Functional and Molecular Systems (IBSC-FMS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

2008 - present

Co-founder and CTO of Aquarray GmbH 2018-present

 2006 - 2010

PhD student, Department of Dermatology and Allergology, University Medical Centre Mannheim, University of Heidelberg

2006  

Research Assistant, Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics, University Hospital Charite

2006  

Research Assistant, Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Moscow, Russia

2005-2006

Research Assistant, Institute for Virus Research, Kyoto University

2004  

Research Assistant, Laboratory of Viral Carcinogenesis, Institute for Carcinogenesis, Blokhin Cancer Research Center, Moscow, Russia

2000- 2005  M.Sc.

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Department of Cell Biology and Immunology, Microbiology, with excellence

Funding (selected grants)

2021-2022                                            
KIT Future Fields “Screening Platform for Personalized Oncology (SPPO) – Standardized Individual Profiling of Tumours based on Miniaturized Technology for Drug Sensitivity Screening”. 2021 HeiKa 2020 “Combining Droplet Microarrays and Mass Spectrometry for Single-Cell Proteomics”.

2020-2023 Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg Ideenwettbewerb Biotechnologie

2020 HeiKa 2019 “High-throughput compound screening in 3D glioma tumorsphere models”.

2018-2020 DFG PO 1820/3-1: “ChIPseq-on-Chip: Droplet-Microarray as a miniaturized high throughput platform for parallel ChIP-seq experiments”.

2018 HeiKa 2017  “Eradicating integrin-mediated resistance to the cancer therapies by combinatorial screening in 3D using miniaturized Droplet-Microarrays”.

Innovation

  • Cofounder of Aquarray GmbH, founded 29.03.2018, development and commerciallization of the novel miniaturized platform for cell experiments and personalized medicine.

          www.aquarray.com

Awards

  • Poster Prize, EMBL/Stanford Personalized Health Conference 2015

  • The Tony B. Award, The SLAS Academic Travel Awards Program, SLAS2016

  • Nominated for SLAS Innovation Award, SLAS 2016

  • SCIENCE4LIFE VENTURE CUP Aquarray group 2017

  • The Tony B. Award, The SLAS Academic Travel Awards Program, SLAS2018

  • The Tony B. Award, The SLAS Academic Travel Awards Program, SLAS2019

    Patent applications

  • P. A. Levkin, S. Schillo, A. Popova, E. Boles, “ Transfer in array format of molecular libraries into a liquid phase arranged in array format ”, 2014, submitted

  • Method of producing 3D cell structures in hanging droplets and hanging droplet device comprising 3D cell structures (A15034). K. Demir, P. Levkin, A. Popova. EP 16000873.6, 18.04.2016 pending

  • Popova, Levkin Deutsche Patentanmeldung 10 2020 119 332.7 vom 22.07.2020. „Optical detection method”.

  • Popova, Levkin, Chakraborty “Parallel direct isolation and manipulation of nucleic acid from cultured cells in nanoliter droplets”. EP4186981 Published 31.05.2023.