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.
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.