Roman Hrstka

We intend to identify, evaluate and put into clinical practice specific tumor biomarkers allowing for improvement of recent diagnostic methods, monitoring of minimal residual disease, detection of metastasis presence or predict risk of their development, and application as therapeutic targets. Besides using state-of-the-art technologies when analyzing these biomarkers, we also develop our own methodological strategies and technologies for their detection, especially electrochemical DNA and RNA biosensors, representing simple, rapid and inexpensive alternative to current methods.

Research objectives

1. To study organometallic compounds representing potential anticancer drugs. We are focused on hybrid compounds formed by a sugar residue ensuring specific binding to galectins and an organometallic part that contains an iron or ruthenium atom in its structure. We expect that the presence of organometallic ligand may i) modulate the affinity to galectins, ii) enhance anticancer activity and iii) serve as an electrochemical probe enabling easier detection in biological samples.

2. Identification of new cancer biomarkers with focus especially on: i) genetic alterations, ii) viruses as an etiological agent responsible for cancer development and iii) selected proteins, predominantly protein disulfide isomerases. Selected or newly identified biomarkers are subsequently evaluated on human biological specimens provided by Bank of Biological Material at MMCI. In parallel, we develop new electrochemical biosensors for the detection of these biomarkers as a quick and cheap alternative to the methods currently used.