Profile

I’m microbiologist, fascinated about different microbes, especially those called fungi. I’m a mum of 10 years old daughter, with whom we love to cook and bake! My favourite meal is red Thai curry served with sticky rice, and chocolate cake (for desert of course ;)). I love to get active and exercise as much as relax with a good book.

During my PhD I developed novel approaches to treat trauma-associated fungal infections. I worked with few fungal species that are found in the environment (some of those cause bread, tomato and/or corn spoiling) but also, when they get into the wound, can cause serious diseases in human. Currently, I work with human and fish gut microbiota, and am investigating how these gut bacteria are affected by fermented seaweed food additives.

I run in-vitro colon model. It is a machine that mimic human gut (the conditions, such as temperature, oxygen level or pH). This machine can help bacteria, that are found in the gut, survive, so we can count them and observe how the proportion of different types of bacteria are changing (following different treatment). The treatment I’m using, is the fermented seaweeds. To do this experiment I grow bacteria that are in the human faecal samples (in the machine) that I get from donors and feed them with mentioned seaweeds.

I also grow some bacteria on plates (with specific food they like) to observe if seaweeds can kill them.