Two post-doctoral researchers have been awarded prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships at Unifr. Philip Scholten and Samet Kocabey will investigate degradable plastics and cancer biomarkers, respectively.  

Philip Scholten of Principal Investigator Prof. Christoph Weder’s group (Adolphe Merkle Institute) will develop degradable plastics. His project will focus on novel materials based upon highly complex polymers containing metallic ions. The difficulty of recycling commodity plastics means that incineration and landfills are still the main options when dealing with this waste. Novel materials are therefore needed to help tackle these issues, and facilitate the recycling and degradation of plastics. 

Samet Kocabey of Principal Investigator Prof. Curzio Rüegg’s group in the Section of medicine will investigate microRNAs, which play a major role in gene regulation, as potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring. Kocabey plans to develop a sensitive assay system. It would allow the simultaneous detection of multiple microRNA targets from breast cancer cells and plasma by using a nanoscale folding method called DNA origami, and a state-of-art super resolution imaging technique.