Bulgaria has become the 32nd member state of EMBC, the intergovernmental organization that funds the major EMBO Programmes and activities. We spoke to Stoyno Stonov on this occasion.
You have worked in Bulgaria for most of your career. How did that come about?
I began my journey as a biochemist at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Sofia, Bulgaria, at a rather turbulent time. It was 1994, five years after the fall of the communist regime. With the borders now open, almost all (~100) scientists of the institute left Bulgaria to pursue careers across Europe and the US. This coincided with economic hardships due to the restructuring of the national economy, which impacted scientific funding. As a result, conducting advanced research was difficult for a number of years.
Scientists who had completed their PhD Degrees immediately went abroad, and I did the same. I won a fellowship of the Humboldt Foundation in 2002, which supports a visit to Germany for a year, and I joined the laboratory of EMBO Member Francis Stewart at the Biotechnology Center in Dresden. After a very productive stay I came back to the Institute of Molecular Biology and established my own group studying genomic stability, which I led together with my colleague Marina Nedelcheva-Veleva. Despite being able to attract only undergraduate students at the time, we demonstrated that the uncoupling of DNA synthesis from unwinding is the trigger of the replication stress checkpoint.
In 2011/2012, I spent a year as a visiting scientist in the group of EMBO Member Stephan Grill at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany. While my initial goal was to do some “hardcore” biochemistry, it was there that I realized the potential of advanced microscopy techniques to measure the sequence of DNA repair processes with high temporal resolution in live cells. Over the following ten years, our group obtained considerable funding and attracted young scientists from Bulgaria as well as abroad in order to adopt and employ advanced microscopy for the study of genomic stability.
Can you tell us about your involvement in pan-European initiatives, such as Euro-BioImaging?
The initial investment in advanced microscopy systems enabled us to apply with success and establish a node within the Euro-BioImaging ERIC consortium. Membership in such a network, which brings together hundreds of experts from the various domains of imaging techniques and analysis, provides invaluable support and knowledge exchange. Together with the inclusion of our microscopy centre in the National Roadmap for Scientific Infrastructure, the Euro-BioImaging membership fostered the development of the node. It now offers a broad range of advanced techniques to researchers from Bulgaria as well as other European countries.
What is your latest research focused on?
We strive to understand the mechanisms involved in the maintenance of genomic stability in the context of cancer and neurodegenerative disease. We approach this by measuring and modelling the dynamics of processes, such as DNA repair, replication fork stalling and mitosis. Further, we characterize the precise effects that therapeutic agents have on these dynamics to provide insight into their mechanisms of actions.
What new opportunities do you see for researchers in Bulgaria through the EMBC Membership?
Despite the constantly increasing national research funding and the establishment of scientific infrastructures, Bulgarian researchers remain relatively isolated from the European and global life sciences communities. The membership of Bulgaria in EMBC will dramatically foster the cooperation between Bulgarian scientists and their European colleagues as well as the adoption of state-of-the-art methods.
What are current trends in the life sciences in the country?
There is an increasing interest in chromatin structure and function, plant biology and neurobiology. International collaboration also increases, for example, our institute has an ongoing collaboration with the MPI-CBG and the Institut Curie in France to build a centre for the study of rare diseases and cancer.
What are the challenges?
The major challenge is creating a research environment that will attract talented young scientists to establish their own group and perform independent, cutting-edge research, with the ultimate goal of making meaningful contributions that will benefit society.
What advice do you have for early-career scientists starting in Bulgaria?
I would urge them not to be afraid of pursuing new topics and developing new methodologies. While this may be risky in the short-term, it can have long-term benefit for their careers.