Pavlina Ivanova , Ph.D.,
Institute of Polymers, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Pavlina Ivanova is a research fellow in the laboratory whose training is in organic chemistry. She has extensive experience in lipid chemistry, specializing in chromatography, and mass spectrometry as methods for analysis of biological samples. Pavlina’s previous experience before joining the lab included organic synthesis of polyphosphoinositides. Pavlina was involved in the some of the early development of lipidomic technology and performed much of the initial work on the FT-ICR instrument in the laboratory of our collaborator Professor Fred McLafferty. Her current research involves analysis and interpretation of mass spectra of primary macrophages; developing new techniques for glycerophospholipid extraction and identification; improving the TLC and HPLC capabilities for separation of positional isomers of polyphosphoinositides (phosphatidylinositol mono- and bis-phosphates, PIP and PIP₂) and ultimately for the quantitation of polyphosphoinositides (PIP, PIP₂ and PIP₃) derived from biological samples.