Dr Dominika Gruszka from the Department of Physics and the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery has been named as one of six 2023 Vallee Scholars. The Vallee Foundation’s Vallee Scholar programme provides unrestricted funding for outstanding, early-career, independent investigators carrying out basic biomedical research who are committed to fostering a diverse work environment.
Dr Gruszka is a Wellcome Trust and Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow. She obtained an MSc degree in Physical Biochemistry from the Jagiellonian University (Poland, 2008) and a PhD in Structural Biology from the University of York (UK, 2013). In 2012-2015, Dominika was a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Professor Jane Clarke, University of Cambridge, where she employed ensemble and single-molecule biophysical techniques to dissect protein-mediated biofilm formation in bacteria. In 2015, she joined the laboratory of Dr Hasan Yardimci at the Francis Crick Institute to study eukaryotic DNA replication using single-molecule imaging in Xenopus egg extracts.
In 2022, Dominika established her own laboratory at the Department of Physics and the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, University of Oxford. Her group combines single-molecule imaging with chemical and physical approaches to study the molecular mechanisms underpinning chromatin dynamics during DNA replication.
Dr Gruszka comments: ‘I am deeply honoured and grateful to receive this prestigious award from the Vallee Foundation, who have contributed so much to promote excellence and diversity within the scientific research community.’