Position Title
Graduate
Ofelya obtained her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Oklahoma. At the end of her freshman year, she joined Dr. Acar Handan’s lab as an undergraduate research assistant. She was involved in several ongoing research in the lab, with the most prominent one being a study of the formation mechanisms and characteristics of ovarian cancer spheroids, where she co-authored her first paper published in September 2020 in the Journal of Gynecologic Oncology. Prior to graduating from the University of Oklahoma, she completed an honors senior thesis under Dr. Handan’s supervision which was focused on the cell death mechanism of heat-treated OVCAR8 cells. She was twice nominated for an Honors Undergraduate Research Opportunity grant to carry individual research projects along with the collaborative research. Within the research scope, she studied Cathepsin B mediated cleavage of peptides for therapeutic usages in ovarian cancer research. Her current research focus in Dr. Tan’s lab is designing synthetic cells for chronic disease treatment.