Amanda is a Research Scientist jointly affiliated to the Korcsmáros Group and Macaulay Group. Amanda gained her BSc and MSc at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, where she found bacterial modulation of autophagy particularly interesting - her MSc focused upon in silico analysis of predicted protein-protein interactions between Salmonella and the autophagy network in humans. During her PhD studies she was further characterising the way that Salmonella (amongst other pathogens) use to hijack the human autophagy process which would otherwise tend to eliminate intracellular bacteria.
Currently awaiting her PhD diploma, building on her previous projects, Amanda joined the Korcsmáros Group to study the cell type-specific effects of Bifidobacteria in the gut using mouse and organoid models, and low input RNA sequencing. She hopes to achieve a better understanding of host-pathogen and host-microbiota interactions, potentially leading to improved effectiveness of treatments against bacteria or inflammation.
She is working part-time in the Macaulay lab as well, where she is learning single cell bisulfite sequencing techniques and the analysis of the methylation data, whilst also hoping to gain an understanding on the regulation of distinct cell populations by bacteria or other agents.
She hopes to achieve a better understanding of host-pathogen interactions upon infection, potentially leading to improved effectiveness of antibiotic treatments.
