Dr Robert Czajkowski, from the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Gdańsk and the Medical University of Gdańsk won the National Science Center – Sonata Bis competition. His project Friends or Foes? The role of prophages in the environmental adaptation and virulence of pectinolytic bacteria: Dickeya spp. and Pectobacterium spp. in vitro and in planta”, received over PLN 3 million.

The scientist is going to investigate the global, ecological role of prophages – viral sequences present in the genomes of pectinolytic bacteria in the environmental adaptation and virulence of their bacterial hosts in vitro and in planta.

Research on the prophages revealed that they exert an influence on the genome of the bacteria they inhabit, and thus on the phenotype of the host. Profages can encode and carry foreign genes that give the host new features, such as virulence factors, or factors that enable the host to adapt favorably to the environment it inhabits.

More: https://ug.edu.pl/news/pl/1843/biotechnolog-z-ug-i-gumed-laureatem-konkursu-sonata-bis-10