Dr Aleksandra Tymoszewska received the Witold Drabikowski Award of the Polish Biochemical Society and Merck Sp. z o.o. for the best doctoral thesis in biochemistry in 2022. Congratulations!

Thesis title:
“Class II bacteriocins of Gram – positive bacteria – interactions with the receptor and the development of resistance”
Thesis supervisor: dr hab. Tamara Aleksandrzak-Piekarczyk
Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS in Warsaw

Award results and regulations

Dr Aleksandra Tymoszewska graduated with honors from the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology (field of study: biotechnology). After graduation she proceeded to continue her education at the School of Molecular Biology at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she worked under the supervision of dr hab. Tamara Aleksandrzak-Piekarczyk. In her work, Aleksandra Tymoszewska concentrates on bacteriocins – antibacterial compounds that offer an alternative for antibiotics. She focuses on the identification of novel bacteriocins produced by Gram-positive bacteria, but she also tries to characterize their mechanisms of action as well as the mechanisms of resistance-gaining by sensitive bacteria. She also performs broad analyses of correlations between the resistance of bacteria to bacteriocins and to currently used antibiotics, looking for options of creating multicomponent drugs that would have both improved efficacy and a decreased risk of eliciting bacterial resistance.
Aleksandra Tymoszewska’s scientific record includes seven research articles (six as first author) published in journals noted on the Philadelphia list. She has presented her work at prestigious international conferences many times, both in the form of oral presentations and as posters. In the period 2019-2022 she was the leader of a PRELUDIUM research project of the National Science Center (NCN). Before that, as a coworker in a different NCN-financed project, she had been cooperating with one of the world’s leading research centers studying bacteriocins. In 2022, Aleksandra Tymoszewska received the highly prestigious START fellowship awarded by the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP).
Aleksandra Tymoszewska is also active in science popularization, as an author of popular science texts as well as a leader of workshops and classes for schools.