Dr. Habil. Ewelina Król, Prof. UG

Ewelina Król is a graduate of biotechnology from the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG. After her studies, she pursued doctoral studies in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry (2004-2011). Towards the end of her doctoral studies in 2009, she was employed as a senior technical assistant at the Department of Recombinant Vaccines at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG, where she continues to work to this day. In 2011, she obtained her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences with a focus on Biochemistry, based on her dissertation titled Application of Classical Swine Fever Virus (CSFV) as a Model to Study the Activity of New Inhibitors of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Development (supervisor: Prof. Bogusław Szewczyk). Since 2012, she has been employed as an assistant professor at the University of Gdańsk. In 2012, she completed a short-term internship at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, USA, and in 2016, an internship at the Department of Virology, Veterinary Research Institute, Brno, Czech Republic. In 2020, she obtained her habilitation degree in natural and exact sciences in the field of biological sciences, based on her scientific achievement entitled Development of Innovative Strategies to Combat Human Viral Infections Using Chemically Synthesized Inhibitors. The same year, she was appointed as an associate professor at the University of Gdańsk.

Since 2016, she has been a member of the University of Gdańsk Senate and, since 2019, of the Council of the Discipline of Biological Sciences at UG. During the 2020-2024 term, she served as the Dean of the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG. In 2023, she was appointed head of the Department of Recombinant Vaccines at the MWB UG&MUG.

Her research focuses on developing effective, innovative next-generation recombinant antiviral vaccines based on virus-like particles and/or mRNA, as well as exploring innovative therapeutic options based on chemically synthesized inhibitors of protein glycosylation. Viruses from the Flaviviridae family (Hepatitis C virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, Zika virus), and coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2, NL63, MHV) constitute the core of her scientific interests.

For the past several years, she has actively sought external funding to support her scientific research. She has led several national scientific projects funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (twice under the Iuventus Plus program), the National Science Centre (Preludium, Sonata, Fast Track COVID-19, Opus), and the National Centre for Research and Development (Leader). Currently, she is involved in an international project funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe program, where she serves as the project leaderat the University of Gdańsk. She has also been the chief investigator in several national and international projects. A popularizer of science, she has conducted numerous lectures and workshops.

She is the author of four Polish patents and several Polish and international patent applications. She has published her scientific work in renowned journals, including Trends in Biotechnology, Antiviral Research, Journal of Virology, Biosensors & Bioelectronics, European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and Microbiology Spectrum. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gdańsk Scientific Society and the Mayor of Gdańsk Award for outstanding achievements of young scientists, individual and team awards from the Rector of the University of Gdańsk for scientific and organisational achievements, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education’s TOP500 Innovators Science-Management-Commercialization competition, through which she completed an internship at Stanford University in the United States. She is also a laureate of the prestigious L’Oreal UNESCO For Women in Science scholarship in the habilitation thesis category.