Katarzyna Okurowska

Katarzyna Okurowska is a Senior Research Technician and a part-time doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She received a BSc in Environmental Protection and MSc in Biology from the University of Bialystok, Poland. She also graduated with a MMedSci in Human Nutrition from the University of Sheffield, UK.

She has 7 years’ experience working in the Microbiology Department at Leeds Teaching Hospital (National Health Service, UK), first as a Biomedical Support Worker and then as a Medical Technical Officer. During this time, she gained experience and developed expertise in various sections of pathology: immunology, blood culture, urine, entheric, sputum, infection control and mycology.

She has an additional 6 years’ research experience as a microbiology research technician at the University of Sheffield in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering where she worked on projects exploring lipid production from algae and utilising algal and bacterial consortium for treatment of landfill leachate. Here she learnt to work with algae and handle environmental samples which resulted in five peer-reviewed publications in international journals.

She joined the Sheffield Collaboratorium for Antimicrobial Resistance and Biofilms (SCARAB) in 2018 and during that time she established ex vivo porcine corneal model of bacterial keratitis under the supervision of Dr Esther Karunakaran and Prof Peter Monk. This work is a core component of her doctoral project and the model is being used for the testing novel antimicrobial ocular treatments with a particular focus on biofilms.

PUBLICATIONS

OKUROWSKA, K., ROY, S., THOKALA, P., PARTRIDGE, L., GARG, P., MACNEIL, S., MONK, P. N. & KARUNAKARAN, E. 2020. Establishing a Porcine Ex Vivo Cornea Model for Studying Drug Treatments against Bacterial Keratitis. Jove-Journal of Visualized Experiments.

URWIN, L., OKUROWSKA, K., CROWTHER, L., ROY, S., GARG, P., KARUNAKARAN, E., MACNEIL, S., PARTRIDGE, L. J., GREEN, L., MONK, P.N. 2020. Corneal Infection Models: Tools to investigate the role of biofilms in bacterial keratitis. Cells, 9, 2450; doi:10.3390/cells9112450.

LEFLAY, H., EMERY, K., PANDHAL, J., BROWN, S. (2020) Pathways to economic viability: a pilot scale and techno-economic assessment for algal bioremediation of challenging waste steams. Env. Sci. Water Research & Technology.

OKUROWSKA, K., KARUNAKARAN, E., AL-FARTTOOSY, A., COUTO, N., PANDHAL, J. (2020) Adapting the algal microbiome for growth on domestic landfill leachate. Bioresource Technology, 319.

KAPOORE, R. V., HUETE-ORTEGA, M., DAY, J. G., OKUROWSKA, K., SLOCOMBE, S. P., STANLEY, M. S. & VAIDYANATHANL, S. 2019. Effects of cryopreservation on viability and functional stability of an industrially relevant alga. Scientific Reports, 9.

HUETE-ORTEGA, M., JOHNSON, M. P., GILMOUR, J., OKUROWSKA, K. & VAIDYANATHAN, S. 2015. Linkage between photosynthesis and nitrogen metabolism on the accumulaiton of lipids in microalgae. European Journal of Phycology, 50, 39-40.

HUETE-ORTEGA, M., OKUROWSKA, K., KAPOORE, R. V., JOHNSON, M. P., GILMOUR, D. J. & VAIDYANATHAN, S. 2018. Effect of ammonium and high light intensity on the accumulation of lipids in Nannochloropsis oceanica (CCAP 849/10) and Phaeodactylum tricornutum (CCAP 1055/1). Biotechnology for Biofuels, 11.