Staff Profiles

Irina has been a member of the Assay Development group at the Allen Institute for Cell Science since 2015. She is involved in the development of live-cell, imaged-based quantitative assays.

Irina obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in the laboratory of Kristin O’Brien. Her PhD project investigated the inter-relationship of mitochondrial structure and function and its effect on thermal tolerance in red- and white-blooded Antarctic fishes. Irina holds a diploma in biology from the Eberhard Karls Universitӓt Tübingen, Germany. Prior to joining the Allen Institute for Cell Science, Irina was a postdoctoral scholar in Susanne Rafelski’s laboratory at the University of California, Irvine. There, Irina’s work focused on developing quantitative, live cell and microscopy-based assays to study mitochondrial function and structure in single budding yeast cells during mitochondrial dysfunctions.

Research Interests

I am interested in understanding the inter-relationship of the structure and function of organelles and how this relationship affects the cell across multiple scales.

Expertise

• Mitochondrial bioenergetics
• Mammalian and non-mammalian cell culture
• Assay development and
• Live cell imaging

Research Programs

• Assay Development