DrPamela Swiatlowska

Dr Pamela Swiatlowska is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Heart and Lung Institute in the Faculty of Medicine.

Multi-disciplinary Research | Innovation | Translational Research | Sustainable Lab Work | EDI

Pamela completed her undergraduate studies at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG-MUG (Poland) and University of Glasgow. As a BioLab Polish-American Fulbright Scholar she conducted her Master Research Project at the University of Virginia (USA) in the Owens Lab. During that time, she co-authored two Nature Medicine publications (Cherepanova et al., 2016 and Shankman et al. 2015) on the role of Oct4 and Kl4 in the atherosclerotic lesion development and progression.

She earned her PhD in 2019 from Imperial College London under the supervision of Prof Julia Gorelik, working on cardiac myocyte mechanobiology and adapting mechano-Scanning Ion Conductance Microscopy for live cell topography and Young’s modulus mapping. She spent 1 year as a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University in Delmar Lab studying mechanobiology of plakophilin-2 knock out mice cardiomyocytes, model of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. In December 2020, she moved to Queen Mary University London to study mechanobiology of vascular smooth muscle cells in the Iskratsch Lab. In 2023 she received a British Heart Foundation Imperial College London Centre of Excellence Fellowship.


Her independent research now explores how mechanical and non-mechanical stimuli influence nuclear structure, nuclear signalling, epigenetic changes, chromatin 3D organization, and nuclear lipids in heart failure, atherosclerosis, as well as aging. Building on these findings, she also investigates different interdisciplinary approaches that can reverse these alterations.


Dr Swiatlowska is the Multifaculty Cellular Mechanosensing and Functional Microscopy Research Centre Advisory Board Member.


Independent Funding
• EU-METABOLIC HEART COST Action 2025
• European Atherosclerosis Society Early Career Researcher Competitive Grant Finalist 2024 (result: highly commended, special award allocated)
• Dame J Higgins Research Fund 2024
• Imperial College London NHLI Pilot Research Grant 2023
• Imperial College London BHF CRE Postdoctoral Research Fellowships 2023-2024, 2024-present
• QMUL Research IMPACT Fund 2022


Editorial Activity
• Grant Reviewer British Council - International Science Partnerships Fund 2024-present
• Grant Reviewer British Heart Foundation 2023-present
• Grant Reviewer NHLI Postdoc Committee 2023-present
• Manuscript Reviewer Biophysical Reviews 2021-present
• Manuscript Reviewer Frontiers in Bioengineering 2024-present
• Guest Co-Editor at the Biophysical Reviews 2021-2022 (Cardiovascular Mechanobiology; Vol 15, Issue 5, Oct 2021)


Travel Grants
• Mechano-Genomic EMBO workshop 2024 Travel Grant, Italy
• 8th Meeting of The Invadosome Consortium Travel Grant 2022
• ISHR World Congress Early Career Investigator Travel Grant 2022
• 10th International Workshop on Cardiomyocyte Biology Ascona Travel Grant 2021
• 65th Annual Meeting Biophysical Society Travel Grant 2021
• The Company of Biologists, DMM Conference Travel Grant 2019
• Physiological Society, Outreach Grant 2019
• British Society of Cell Biology, Travel Grant 2018
• Departmental NHLI Travel Award, 2018
• Biochemical Society, Travel Grant 2018
• Physiological Society, Travel Grant 2018
• Imperial College London General Trust Conference Grant 2017


Leadership activities
• National Heart and Lung Institute ICL Postdoctoral Committee 2023-present
• Imperial College London Mock Interview Panel Member 2023-present
• Lead Early Career Researcher Representative, School of Engineering and Materials Science 2021-2023
• Women in Science and Engineering Committee Member at QMUL (WISE@QMUL) 2021-2023
• CRICK London Cell Motility Symposium Ambassador and co-organizer 2021-present
• Leader of Sustainability Green Lab Programme (LEAF, Bronze Award recipient) QMUL 2021-2023


Awards
• Early Career Investigators Marshal Award 2022 runner-up, British Society for Cardiovascular Research
• ‘QMUL SEMS ECRs - Team of the Year’ 2022 School of Engineering and Materials Science, QMUL
• QMUL Research IMPACT Award 2022
• QMUL 2022 Staff Bonus Scheme for going above and beyond in the academic environment
• President’s Award for Excellence in Research for Outstanding Research Team, Imperial College London 2018
• National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, 3-year PhD Studentship 2015
• Marshal of the Warminsko-Mazurskie Province Studentship for the Best Students, 2015
• BioLAB Traineeship, Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission, 2014-2015
• Erasmus Programme Scholarship 2013
• „Best University Students” 2012/2013 Medical University of Gdansk - University of Gdansk
• Science Dean’s Scholarships 2011 - 2014 Medical University of Gdansk - University of Gdansk

Early Career Researchers Development
• CardioStars 2024 BHF-Panacea translation and commercialization programme
• Royal Society Pairing Scheme “2024 Week at Westminster” Research-Policy exchange
• Future Leaders UK Program 2022 cohort, The Foundation for Science and Technology
• “Leadership in Action” course, Resilient Leaders Element Ltd, 2021
• UNIque Female Career Development Course for early Career researchers 2022