My research aims to answer the question how bacteria transport protein antibiotics across the outer membrane, which is normally a highly protective barrier that otherwise excludes many classes of small molecule antibiotics. Specifically, I investigate how protein antibiotics called bacteriocins parasitize energy transduction systems within bacteria to promote their import, resulting in the death of the bacterium. By using advanced techniques to observe individual molecules in real-time, I aim to uncover the physical forces that drive this process. This research could lead to new ways of developing antibiotics that bypass bacterial defences and offer solutions to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
I obtained a MSc degree in Biochemistry from Pavol Jozef Safarik University (Kosice, Slovakia, 2019) and a PhD in Biophysics from Pavol Jozef Safarik University (2023). During my PhD study, I have investigated therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, as well as pathological light chains of IgG which cause AL amyloidosis and multiple myeloma. Specifically, I examined the conformational and colloidal stability of therapeutical antibodies and molecular mechanisms leading to their changes. In April 2024, I joined Prof. Colin Kleanthous and Dr. Dominika Gruszka groups as a Post-Doctoral Research associate in the Department of Biochemistry, for fascinating research – energy transduction through the bacterial cell envelope during bacteriocins import by single-molecule techniques.
