I graduated from Vilnius University (Vilnius, Lithuania) with a degree in Biological Sciences in 2013 and pursued my academic interests further in a Master’s programme in Neurobiology (Vilnius University) that I completed with Magna Cum Laude honours degree in 2015. My Master’s degree project was based in Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS) (Kaunas, Lithuania) and involved mapping the neuroanatomical organisation of the mammalian heart in large model organisms.

 

Afterwards, I worked in a technical position at LUHS on a project investigating autonomic disbalance of the enteric nervous system in patients with colonic diverticular disease. During this time, I had an opportunity to go abroad and get involved in several side projects with our collaborators in the United States (Prof S Noujaim; Tufts Medical Centre, Boston, MA, USA) and Germany (Prof C Wahl-Schott; LMU, Munich, Germany).

 

In 2017 I was nominated British Heart Foundation (BHF) 4-year PhD studentship in Integrative Cardiovascular Sciences programme at the University of Bristol.

 

During the first year of the programme, I underwent two rotation projects: (1) investigating TSP1–pro-LOX interaction in primary arterial smooth muscle cells by means of super-resolution microscopy in Prof Jo Adams group, and (2) creating a zebrafish model of human SNPs using CRISPR under the supervision of Dr Rebecca Richardson.

 

After completing my first year of rotations, I joined Murphy’s group where my thesis project involves investigating transcriptional changes that occur in carotid bodies of patients with cardio-respiratory and metabolic conditions, and animal models of said diseases.

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3Rs Research Champion.

 

OrchidID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9635-8872