Biography

Prof. Helena Bujdáková, PhD. is the head of the Department of Microbiology and Virology and the person responsible for the master's and PhD. study in the field of Microbiology. She is an expert in medical microbiology. She currently specializes in various areas of microbial biofilm studies. She has been working as a teacher at the Department of Microbiology and Virology for more than 20 years. She lectures the courses of basic microbiology, medical microbiology, and mycology. She has experience in leading national projects, several bilateral projects with research institutions in Austria, Armenia, and Portugal, and she participated in an EU-funded project as a member of the CanTrain consortium within the Marie Curie Research Training Network 6th Framework Program, 2004-2009) and the project COST Action iPROMEDAI TD1305 (Improved Protection of Medical Devices, 2014-2018). As the main applicant, she was successful in obtaining an international project in Horizon 2020; WIDESPREAD-05-2020; project CEMBO 952398 named „Excellence in the research area of Combating and evaluation of mixed biofilms“ (2020 - 2023).
She is a delegate of the Czechoslovak Society of Microbiology, a joint organization of microbiologists of the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic.
Study of various aspects of microbial biofilm, mainly biofilm formed by the yeasts of the genus Candida has been the main topic of her research for many years. In this field, her team has been focused on three directions; the first one covers investigation of biofilm formed by different Candida spp., namely C. albicans, C. glabrata, C parapsilosis, and a new pathogen of C. auris. She together with her co-workers try clarifying differences in structure and physiology of biofilm with emphasis on factors of virulence and their role in biofilm development. Complex of Candida virulence factors (ALS, hydrophobicity, the yeast-to hyphae transition, quorum sensing, etc.) has been the second topic in which she is interested in. The third area of investigation is the biofilm resistance and possibility their reversal or eradication. This research is focused not only on mechanisms of resistance, but also on possibility of treatment by non-conventional methods such as peptide or antibody therapy and photodynamic inactivation. Her team is one of a few one in Europe using methods of photodynamic inactivation employing photoactive compounds irradiated with light source for eradication of microorganisms. For biofilm research, she has employed in vivo model Galleria mellonella with which her team has been working for many years and has had extensive experiences. In recent years, her team has also been preparing and testing the anti-biofilm properties of new nanomaterials based on clay minerals and photosensitizers on methicillin-resistant S. aureus.