Ms Karina Sbisa

Contact Details

Key Responsibilities

• Associate Lecturer (Level A) in Molecular and Microbiology

Teaching

• Practical Demonstrator for Basic Microbiology and Genetic and Cell Biotechnology

Research

Organisms have adapted to combating an array of DNA damages, such as pyrimidine dimers, by a series of pathways that recognize specific alterations in the DNA sequence. Such pathways include Photo-reactivation, Base Excision Repair, and finally the SOS Response. Without these processes errors in the DNA sequence can accumulate which can lead to cell death. Much of the earlier work in this field has concentrated on enteric bacteria, specifically Escherichia coli, which has become the basic paradigm for exploring DNA repair. Limited information is known about how such repair pathways function in other bacteria, and therefore about the extent to which they are universal among prokaryotes.

The marine species Vibrio natriegens is of interest to our laboratory as it inhabits an environment that has high exposure to solar UV radiation on a daily basis, but is still able to maintain the fidelity of its DNA. Our laboratory is investigating the genes and pathways involved in repairing DNA damage caused by solar UV radiation using Vibrio natriegens as our model system. I am currently working on the isolation and characterisation of such genes from the V. natriegens genome by promoter trapping.

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