Gdańsk City Council highest award for prof. Krystyna Bieńkowska-Szewczyk

Gdańsk City Council has awarded prof. Krystyna Bieńkowska-Szewczyk with the highest honor – Saint Adalebrtus Medal (Św. Wojciech Medal) – for the impact on the development of science in the national and international dimension, as well as the development of the health service, higher education and the economy, for the impact on cooperation and integration of the academic community and involvement in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof. Krystyna Bieńkowska-Szewczyk is the head of the Department of Molecular Biology of Viruses at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of the University of Gdańsk and the MUG. She completed her master’s thesis in biochemistry (1976) at the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences of the University of Gdańsk. She dealt with the molecular biology of bacteriophages and this subject was covered by her doctorate at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk (1982). The degree of dr. hab. in 2002, and the title of prof. in 2009.

Together with her husband, she created a modern molecular virology laboratory at the University of Gdańsk, where numerous viruses (alpha-herpesviruses, hepatitis C, influenza, animal pathogens, insect baculovirus), retroviruses and adenoviruses for the expression of foreign genes and the construction of viral vectors are tested. It cooperates with centers in the Netherlands, Germany and Scotland. She obtained the first grant at the University of Gdańsk financed by the European Commission (1998), and in the years 2001-2013 she managed a partner group in four international projects financed by the prestigious EU PR, incl. in the HEPACIVAC consortium working on a vaccine against hepatitis C. She managed many national projects financed by the State Committee for Scientific Research and the National Science Center. She was the host of the world virology congress in Poland in 2011.

The 36th International Herpesvirus Workshop, was chosen to host the largest virology congress in Europe, the European Congress of Virology (Gdańsk, 2023). On her initiative, the International Center for Research on Cancer Vaccines was established in Gdańsk, based on the FNP’s International Research Agendas program. She is a co-founder of the European Virus Bioinformatics Center. She is the author or co-author of 55 publications. She was an expert for the National Science Center and the European Commission in competitions on virology and vaccines (Covid-19, 2020 and 2021). He conducts lectures and seminars on molecular virology for students of the University of Gdańsk. She is a promoter of 12 doctorates and a member of the Biotechnology Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences.