PROFIL PRACOWNIKA: Paulina Pruszkowska-Przybylska

My research focuses on auxology and medical anthropology. I took my first scientific steps during my bachelor's studies, when I focused on the issues of various factors that can affect body proportion and composition, as well as human development at different stages of ontogenesis.

During my master's studies carried out as part of the Individual Study Program, I participated in the international EUROFORGEN research at the University of Copenhagen in the Department of Forensic Genetics under the supervision of Prof. Niels Morling, which resulted in an article published in the renowned journal: Forensic Science International: Genetics.

As part of the projects included in my doctoral thesis , I returned to the topic of disorders of body proportion and composition , as well as the rate of motor development in children, also in the context of the 2D:4D finger index.

I defended my doctoral thesis with distinction in 2020.

In April 2019, in cooperation with three units (Department of Anthropology , Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection , University of Lodz ; Academy of Physical Education in Wroclaw ; Department of Anthropology of the Polish Academy of Sciences , Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy in Wroclaw), I started my own project on the expression level of selected microRNAs among volleyball players examined before and after training over the course of one season of competition . I showed that the expression level of one of the microRNAs is associated with physical effort.

 

The greatest successes of my recent research work concern the 2D:4D finger index, which seems to be a universal tool for assessing the proportion of prenatal sex hormones. In my scientific work, I try to solve important research problems concerning the finger ratio and their connection with the development of various disorders, such as obesity or thyroid diseases.

The second research area that I am still exploring is the epigenetic age. During a 6-week internship at the Centre for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease (University of Western Australia and Curtin University), I analyzed the epigenome to determine the epigenetic age of pregnant Australian women with preeclampsia. The results were published in the internationally prestigious Scientific Reports and received wide coverage in the national media (including onet.pl, Gazeta Wyborcza , biotechnologia.pl).

Continuing my work on human epigenetic age , I took over the management of the project entitled " Epigenetic basis of the aging process among people with sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)" financed by the National Science Centre (NCN) Miniatura 5 grant. The project was carried out at the University of Copenhagen.

In 2020/2022, I was employed as an executive in the project "Epigenome analysis for investigative purposes - increasing the identification and detection capabilities of DNA tests". In the project, I performed anthropometric measurements and created a database, and also participated in the creation of the manuscript of several high-ranking works from the JCR list.

In cooperation with Dr. Mircea Ilescu (Cambridge University), who was a guest at the Department of Anthropology in the years 2020-2022 as part of the IDUB project and who I personally supervised, work was undertaken on skin pigmentation in the Polish population in correlation with vitamin D.

In addition to scientific work, teaching plays an important role in my activity.

I have extensive experience in various forms of improving students' and pupils' skills. For several editions , I have been supervising high school students in the Zdolny Uczeń Wielki Student project and interns as part of the Students' Power student program. In 2021-2022, I trained at Ghent University as part of the Mistrzowie Dydaktyki project, obtaining a tutor certificate. In the academic year 2023/2024 I conducted a series of training courses for the academic staff of the University of Lodz. In 2023 I won the Dean's Award of the 3rd degree for teaching achievements and received distinctions in the plebiscite for the Academic Teacher of the Year of the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection of the University of Lodz.

In my private life I am a happy wife and mother. My passions are traveling, mountain hiking, running (especially long-distance), swimming and cycling .

 

Main research areas

- epigenetic age

- 2D:4D digit ratio

- body composition and its proportions in children and adults

- vitamin D and pigmentation

Project management

" Epigenetic basis of the aging process in people with sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)." - the research project will be carried out at the University of Copenhagen , received funding under the MINIATURA 5 competition (NCN), no. 2021/05/X/NZ1/01049: Dr. Paulina Pruszkowska -Przybylska. Implementation deadline 15.12.2021-15.12.2022.

Major internships abroad

21.06-16.09.2022	Research internship at the University of Copenhagen in the Department of Forensic Genetics. Project implementation: "Epigenetic basis of the aging process among people with sudden cardiac arrest (SCA)." - the project received funding under the MINIATURA 5 competition (NCN), no. 2021/05/X/NZ1/01049. Role in the project: project manager. Effect: Pruszkowska -Przybylska, P., Dupont, M. E., Jacobsen, S. B., Smerup, M., Tfelt -Hansen, J., Morling, N., & Andersen, J. D. (2024). Evaluation of DNAmAge in paired fresh, frozen, and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded heart tissues. Plos one, 19(5), e0299557.
21.10 - 30.11.2019	Internship scientific at The Center for Genetic Origins of Health and Disease (University of Western Australia and Curtin University), Perth (Australia). Research topics: An epigenetic age acceleration from DNA methylation markers among severe preeclamptic and normotensive women. - the project received funding from the University of Lodz Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection competition supporting short-term trips abroad. Effect: Pruszkowska -Przybylska, P., Brennecke, S., Moses, EK, & Melton, PE (2022). Evaluation of epigenetic age calculators between preeclampsia and normotensive pregnancies in an Australian cohort. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 1664.
08.2014- 02.2015	Research internship at the University of Copenhagen in the Department of Forensic Genetics. Realization parts international project: "The EUROFORGEN- NoE ancestry informative marker (AIM) set for Middle eastern and European populations" Effect: Master's thesis and thesis: Pereira, V., Freire- Aradas , A., Ballard, D., Børsting, C., Diez, V., P ruszkowska - Przybylska, P., ... & C arceles , M. P. (2019). Development and validation of the EUROFORGEN NAME (North African and Middle Eastern) ancestry panel. Forensic Science International: Genetics. 42, 260-267.