University of Silesia in Katowice

Joana Cristina Pacheco Barbosa is currently a Junior Researcher at Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry, and Professor at the Faculty of Biotechnology, both from Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Porto (Portugal). Her main research interests are focused on the search for new alternatives to traditional antibiotic therapy, promoting disease prevention rather than treatment, with the goal of delivering better health and well-being to society. Thus, her investigation has been focusing on the discovery and characterization of novel antimicrobial peptides as new antibiotic alternatives, on the characterization of new probiotics and respective delivery methods, and on the development of new functional food alternatives. Previously, she was also involved in the valorization of the knowledge and technologies developed in her research center and their possible transferability towards the industry. She is actively involved in several ongoing projects, teaching and student supervision, as well as in the organization and dynamization of outreaching activities for undergraduate students, from all ages.

Joana completed her PhD in Biology, Specialization Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2020/01/28, at Universidade de Aveiro (Aveiro, Portugal). Her PhD work was performed at Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal) and Technical University of Berlin (Germany) and in collaboration with the Institute of Molecular Medicine (Lisboa, Portugal). She finished her MSc in Molecular Biotechnology in 2012/12 and her BSc in Biotechnology in 2010/07, both at Universidade de Aveiro. During her MSc, she was awarded with an Erasmus grant and spent a semester at Università degli Studi di Pavia (Italy).

For more detailed and up-to-date information, please refer to: https://www.cienciavitae.pt/portal/en/2612-C1A9-64B2

Dr. Katarzyna Duda, born in Ruda Slaska, Poland, studied Biology with specialization in Microbiology at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. During her Ph.D. studies at the University of Silesia, Department of Microbiology, Katowice, Poland and at the Research Center Borstel, Department of Structural Biochemistry, Borstel, Germany, she gained knowledge on structure determination of bioactive components of bacterial cell envelope. Currently, Dr. Katarzyna Duda heads the Research Group of Biofunctional Metabolites and Structures at Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center (RCB) since 2021. Her research interest is the discovery, isolation and structure-function characterization of novel metabolites and structures of bacterial or environmental origin that are critical for understanding the mechanism beyond chronic lung diseases as well as their therapies.

She is a Principal Investigator at the German Center for Lung Research (DZL) where she is dedicated to asthma and allergy research.

Teaching future and young scientists as well as activities aimed at sharing knowledge with the public are important to her. She is a lecturer at the Borstel Biomedical Research School, the University of Lübeck and the Christian Albrecht University in Kiel. Katarzyna has contributed to the organization of various public activities at the Research Center Borstel, such as “World-Asthma-Tag” (2016, 2017), “Borstel Kinder-Uni” (2018) and “Open House Day at RCB” (2018).

Małgorzata Przybyła-Kasperek works as Professor of the University of Silesia in Katowice, at Faculty of Science and Technology. She received a habilitation in Computer Science from the Institute of Computer Science Polish Academy of Sciences in 2018, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Silesia in 2011 and a M.Sc. in Mathematics from the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at the University of Silesia in 2006. The focus of her research is data mining, decision support systems and expert systems. Her studies are especially related to making decision based on dispersed knowledge and artificial intelligence. She has authored over 100 scientific papers, many of which have appeared in prestigious, high-impact journals. At the Doctoral School, she teaches courses on Didactics in Higher Education, Research methodology in computer science, and selected topics in artificial intelligence. Additionally, she supervises several doctoral students and leads the research group Complex Decision Systems and Their Applications.

A field of research of dr Monika Malicka is the biotechnology of microorganisms. The subject of her studies are fungi which live is symbiosis with plants, in particular two groups: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and dark septate endophytes, which has been poorly studied so far. She studies the biodiversity of these fungi in environments contaminated with hydrocarbons, their development in the presence of contaminants and their potential to improve plant growth, using the recent advanced molecular techniques. She isparticularly interested in the interactions between fungal symbionts, host plants and soil microbiota. The aim of her current research is the development of microbial consortium, which consists of dark septate endophytes, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and mycorrhiza helper bacteria cooperataing in the enhancement of phytoremediation of soils contaminated with hydrocarbons.

The activity is co-financed by the project International from the beginning – wsparcie umiędzynarodowienia financed by the National Agency for Academic Exchange under the STER Programme.

More: https://us.edu.pl/szkola-doktorska/en/ster/