Master thesis internship at Casanova lab

Institute of Forest Entomology, Forest Pathology, and Forest Protection (IFFF)Project: "Dynamics of Wolbachia Spread in Rhagoletis cerasi"As part of this project, I perform DNA extractions and PCR screenings on larvae of the European cherry fruit fly, Rhagoletis cerasi, to detect the presence of various strains of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia. My work focuses on analyzing the spread dynamics of the wCer2 Wolbachia strain across different populations of Rhagoletis cerasi.

Serve football matches of the Lower Austrian Football Association as a referee.

As part of my internship, I rotated through four laboratories, gaining hands-on experience in key diagnostic and research techniques related to tropical diseases: Laboratory of Parasitology: Focused on diagnostic procedures such as modified Ziehl-Neelsen staining, serial parasitological examination, and microscopy of local pathogens, including helminths and protozoa. Laboratory of Virology and Leishmaniasis/Malaria Unit: Observed viral and parasitic species and attended the "From Evidence to Policy Implementation: Infectious Tropical Diseases in Latin America" conference organized by The Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt (IMTAvH). Microbial Genomics Laboratory: Conducted bacterial identification using biochemical tests, studied antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, and applied molecular techniques like PCR and genomic DNA extraction.

I conducted the internship at the Institute of Population Genetics of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna under the supervision of Dr Rui Borges. I focused on developing large-scale sequence alignments for all the protein-coding genes of several genera of archaea and bacteria. My tasks included: 1. Extraction of protein-coding sequences from the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB) database.2. Developing series of filtering steps to ensure that each genus had more than five species and each species had more than nine sequences. This was crucial as it was aimed to analyze segregating polymorphisms in particularly well-characterized genera.3. Aligning the sequences and curating them by eliminating problematic ones, sometimes manually, due to their length or poor alignment.4. Calculating statistics of genetic diversity per species (such as Watterson's θ) and identifying clades that were particularly diverse and likely to violate the typical infinite sites assumption in population genetics models.

In my role as a student research assistant, I was actively involved in a research project aimed at improving the carbon efficiency of citric acid production.

Providing consultations for applicants from CIS countries on admission to universities in Austria

Completed the bachelor internship with subsequent writing of the bachelor thesis in Research Group of Univ. Prof. Dipl-Ing. Dr. nat. techn. Diethard Mattanovich (Metabolic and Cell Engineering). The research was focused on increasing the carbon efficiency of citric acid production. Methods and techniques learned during the internship: - designing and constructing the vectors by the Golden Gate cloning; - designing and using of CRISPR/ Cas9 plasmids for genome engineering and metabolic engineering; - nuclear DNA and plasmid extraction and purification; - colony PCRs; - transformation of E.Coli by the designed plasmid.

Serving customers at the cash register. Helping in ensuring the usual activities of the branch (making coffee, baking).

• Collected and packed orders for further delivery to customers. • Engaged in general warehouse logistics.