Alexander Dekan

I work in the laboratory of Extreme biology since 2019 as a bioinformatician. My research is mainly focused on organisms with extraordinary capabilities. I also have experience in cancer research: in 2018 I studied synonymous mutations that lead to cancer in humans.

In 2021, I have been immersed into the field of single-cell data analysis. I was trained and worked on a project in Endocrinology Research Center with supervisors Peter Kharchenko from Harvard and Igor Adameyko from Karolinska Institute. This year I also completed my bachelor at KFU with the diploma thesis “Comparative analysis of embryonic and brain tissue of P. vanderplanki in anhydrobiosis”. I compared the two tissues on a single-cell level and discovered a differential response to anhydrobiosis in different cell types. Which led to my current research on cell competition. The ultimate of this project is to create desiccation-resistant mammalian cells.

Research interests:

• Cell competition
• single-cell RNA-seq
• Anhydrobiosis
• Regeneration
• Machine learning

Link to my CV