Lecture by Dr. Lea Rems: Electroporation - how and why we open the membranes of biological cells with electrical pulses

On Thursday, 18 January, at 19:00, a semi-scientific lecture organised by ASEF will take place at the Prešeren Hall, SAZU (Novi trg 4, Ljubljana) .

The lecture will be given by our collaborator, Dr Lea Rems from the Laboratory of Biocybernetics. The title of the talk is "Electroporation - how and why we open the membranes of biological cells with electrical pulses". The lecture is free of charge, but pre-registration is required via Eventbrite at link.

Lecture topic

Electroporation is a phenomenon that occurs when biological cells or tissues are exposed to short, high-voltage electrical pulses. The electrical pulses induce temporary structural changes in the cell membrane, which increase the permeability of the membrane to different molecules. Electroporation can thus be used to increase the uptake or efflux of substances from cells, and non-thermal cell killing can also be achieved using stronger pulses. The first part of the lecture will be devoted to understanding the basic molecular mechanisms of electroporation and the wide applications of electroporation in medicine, biotechnology and food technology. In the second part, we will focus on electroporation of excitable cells, such as muscle and neuronal cells, which are capable of generating their own electrical signals. These studies are particularly relevant for the development of new therapeutic approaches based on the electroporation of excitable tissues, including the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias and various forms of gene therapy. We will conclude with a brief insight into our future research in this field.

About the lecturer

Lea Rems graduated in 2012 and obtained her PhD in 2016 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. During her PhD studies, she spent several months as a visiting scholar at the University of Lorraine in France. After her PhD, she continued her postdoctoral training at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, followed by the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. In 2021, she returned to the University of Ljubljana, where she is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, working within the Biocybernetics Laboratory. She has been involved in research in the field of electroporation for about 13 years, focusing on understanding the basic mechanisms of electroporation at the molecular level of the cell membrane and at the level of individual cells. His work involves a variety of experimental methods and computer simulations. She has won several awards, including the Alessandro Chiabrera 2021 Early Career Researcher Award. She is also the recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship (2021-2023) and a prestigious European Fundamental Research ERC Starting Grant (2024-2029).