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TNMU Post-Graduate Student Completed Internship at the University of Santiago de Compostela

On December 1, 2022 – May 31, 2023, post-graduate student of the Department of Medical Biochemistry Nataliia Mekhno interned at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) on the basis of the modern scientific laboratory centre CiMUS (the Centre for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases) as part of the Erasmus+ KA107 program.
Nataliia Mekhno completed an internship in the Genomes and Disease research group under the guidance of Associate Professor José Manuel Castro Tubio and Associate Professor Iria Maria Gomez Turino. During this time, she got acquainted with the method of sequencing and quantitative PCR.

Together with Jorge Rodríguez Castro and Ana Pequinho, our post-graduate student mastered real-time DNA sequencing with Oxford Nanopore technology using the MinION Flow Cell, which can generate up to 50 GB of data for real-time sequencing of DNA, cDNA or native RNA.

With the help of Ph.D. Beatriz Harnel and PhD student Martin Kotrulyev, Nataliia Mekhno learned to work with spleen cell culture of NOD female mice and conducted gene expression studies using the quantitative PCR method on the QuantStudio™ 5 Real-Time PCR System Applied Biosystems™ Thermo Fisher Scientific device.

During the internship, Nataliia Mekhno attended a lecture by the speaker Dr. Bernardo Rodríguez Martin, a doctoral student of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Stanford University on the topic: “Long-read sequencing sheds light on the dark side of the human genome”, which took place on February 17, 2023 on the basis of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in the CIMUS research laboratory.

Nataliia Mekhno was invited to a video conference with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky at the Europe Unity For Well-Being event, initiated by T. Shevchenko Kyiv National University within the EUniWell Alliance of European Universities, which took place on May 9, 2023. The EUniWell Alliance unites 11 universities in Europe, including the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University (Ukraine). The event was broadcast to all 11 EUniWell universities.

The experience gained will allow Natalia Mekhno to use the methods she has learned about in her scientific activities and in research at Ternopil National Medical University.
Internship in the modern laboratory of the Centre for Research in Molecular Medicine and Chronic Diseases opens new horizons for scientists and researchers, creates conditions for cooperation between I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University and the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

Nataliia Mekhno expresses her deepest appreciation to the academic supervisors Olha Yaremchuk, Jose Manuel Castro Tubio and Iria Maria Gomez Turino for their help and support in completing the assigned tasks, as well as the university administration and Deputy Rector for International Relations Nataliia Lisnychuk, the curator of the Erasmus+KA107 program Tetiana Kovalchuk for the organization academic mobility.