We are happy to announce the addition of a new PhD student to our group. Please welcome MSc Maria Rafaeva.

Maria is an enthusiastic young researcher with a background in cell biology. In 2015 she completed her BSc studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. Being driven by an interest in microscopy, she continued her studies with a Master’s degree in Biomedical Imaging at the University of Turku in Finland. There she joined the laboratory of Prof. Johanna Ivaska and worked on the role of cell metabolism in regulation of integrin receptor activity and cancer cell invasion.

In the Erler lab Maria will focus her efforts on uncovering the role of cancer cell-extracellular matrix interactions in metastasis, which in the future could lead to the identification of new solutions for cancer therapy. We are very excited to have her in the lab and we look forward to follow the project progress.