prof. dr hab. Barbara Lipińska

prof. dr hab. Barbara Lipińska

• University of Gdańsk

 

In 1970, she earned her Master’s degree at the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences of the University of Warsaw (specializing in Biochemistry) and in 1979 she was conferred a doctorate in Life Sciences at the Faculty of Biology, Geography and Oceanology of the University of Gdańsk. Between 1980 and 1982, she held postdoctoral positions at the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology of the Tufts University in Boston, MA, USA and between 1985 and 1988, at the Department of Cellular, Viral and Molecular Biology of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. In 1990, she received habilitation in Life Sciences from the Faculty of Biology, Geography and Oceanology of the University of Gdańsk and in 1999 was given a title of professor. Between 1993 and 2017, she was the chair of the Department of Biochemistry (future Department of General and Medical Biochemistry), Faculty of Biology at the University of Gdańsk.

Her major research area concerns the role of chaperone proteins and proteases in cellular response to stress, and their involvement in oncogenesis and autoimmunity. Acting in cooperation with prof. Costa Georgopoulos from the University of Utah, she has discovered the bacterial HtrA (High temperature requirement A) protease, indispensable for survival under stress conditions. The identification of the protein was a starting point for the research work conducted by her team, focusing on the structure and function of the evolutionarily conserved HtrA family of proteases and chaperones. Together with her team, she has characterised several bacterial and human HtrA proteins and showed that the latter are involved in oncogenesis. Her current studies are focused on the role of the HtrA proteins in apoptosis. She also investigates the mechanisms of function and species specificity of the chaperone proteins belonging to the Hsp70, Hsp60 and Hsp40 families, including the Hsp40 role in autoimmune response in rheumatoid arthritis.

She is a co-author of 76 publications and 1920 citations (no self-citations), with the H-index of 22. She has supervised research projects financed by the Scientific Research Commission (KBN), Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW), Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) and National Science Centre (NCN). She was a member of the KBN, NCN and European Research Council panels evaluating research projects. She was awarded by the Minister of Science, Higher Education and Technology and Polish Biochemical Society, while her team was awarded by the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), Minister of National Education and Rector of the University of Gdańsk. She has supervised 13 doctoral students.