photo: Dominika Hull-Bruska
Daria Wojtala in the Young Talent final
In this year’s edition of Young Talents, a young chemist from the University of Wrocław, Daria Wojtala, was nominated for the main prize in the scientific success category! A gala ceremony will be held this evening in the Aula Leopoldina, during which the prize winners in the various categories will be announced. We are, of course, keeping our fingers firmly crossed for our scientist!
The generation of resistance by bacteria and cancer cells, to drugs used so far, is one of the most serious public health problems worldwide. Drug resistance affects the statistically high morbidity as well as mortality of patients. Therefore, Daria Wojtala’s research interests are related to the design, synthesis and physicochemical and biological characterisation of antibacterial and/or anticancer half-sandwich Ru(II) and Ir(III) complexes with N- and P-donor ligands. With colleagues from the UWr Magnetic Materials Team and collaborators from the Jagiellonian University Faculty of Chemistry, she developed magnetic polymeric micelles allowing selective drug transport as a potential platform for multidirectional drug therapy. External magnetic fields with a high gradient, enable preferential delivery of therapeutics to the tumour site and reduce systemic side effects.
The results of the aforementioned achievement were presented in the Philadelphia-listed journal Chemistry – A European Journal, as well as at international and national conferences. In addition, the described research has been recognised by the scientific community and has been funded by the National Science Centre under the Prelude 22 grant entitled ‘Od skomplikowanych alkaloidów do potencjalnie przeciwnowotworowych fosfinowych kompleksów Ir(III) oraz Ru(II) wspomaganych magnetycznymi nanocząsteczkami.‘ We wrote more about the Preludnium for Daria Wojtala here. She is also co-author of 10 publications with a total IF=37.611, of which she is first author in 3 and correspondence author in 1.
Daria Wojtala is a doctoral student from the Magnetic Materials Group of the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Wrocław. Her research is carried out under the supervision of dr hab. Urszula Komarnicka (supervisor), dr inż. Sandra Kozieł (assistant supervisor), and prof. dr hab. Alina Bieńko (Head of the Group). She has held research internships in Italy at the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Padua, as well as at the University of Ferrara and the Faculty of Chemistry of the Jagiellonian University, among others. She is the winner of the ‘Young Researcher 2023-2024’ Grant competition under the Initiative for Excellence – Research University (IDUB) programme, and received the ‘Young Scientist Award’ at the 16th International Symposium on Applied Bioinorganic Chemistry conference in 2023 in Greece.
