Contact
Biography
Katalin Kovacs is a Associate Professor at the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science to research healthcare provision in extreme and resource-limited environments. She has more than 10 years of research experience in synthetic biology and biological (plant and bacterial) engineering, and she is one of only a few UK based scientist with previous experience in the generation and characterisation of transplastomic plants. She has played a leading role in the development of synthetic biology tools and methodologies for non-model, aerobic and anaerobic organisms, as well as novel gene-drive systems for advanced chloroplast editing in plants.
Expertise Summary
Her current research activities include studying and exploiting the potential of autotrophic microorganisms and plants for the sustainable production of on site, on-demand pharmaceutical from CO2 and renewable energy.
Teaching Summary
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM PHAR3007)
Endocrine and Metabolism (PHAR1019)
Personal tutor
Research Summary
Current Funding:
EP/Y002482/1 UKRI-EPSRC - Rajesh Reddy Bommareddy (PI), Katalin Kovacs (CoI): Electro-fermentation process design for efficient CO2 conversion into value-added products (March 2024-October 2025, £200K)
BB/W01260X/1 UKRI-BBSRC - Katalin Kovács (PI) and Prof. Rupert Fray (CoI): '21ENGBIO' Towards SYnthetic CHLOroPlastS (SYCHLOPS), (January 2022-January 2023, £150K)
BB/W01453X/1 UKRI-BBSRC - Prof. Nigel Minton (PI), Klaus Winzer (CoI), Prof. Peter Licence (CoI), Katalin Kovacs (CoI) '21EBTA' No Carbon Lost - Eliminating CO2 Production from Fermentation Processes, (January 2022 - April 2024, £1.5 million)
BB/W018721/1 UKRI-BBSRC - Prof. Nigel Minton (PI), Klaus Winzer (CoI), Christopher Humphreys (CoI), Katalin Kovacs (CoI) 'International Partnering Award CANADA: NO LOST CARBON - the transition to Net Zero' (May 2022 - Apr 2026, £55K)
Ccnet PoC - Rajesh Bommareddy (PI), Katalin Kovács (CoI), Gary Black (CoI) "Exploring continuous, safe, and efficient production of butanediol from CO2 in an electrogenic reactor using Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34" (April 2022-September 2022, £62K)
EPSRC and SFI CDT in Sustainable Chemistry Atoms-2-Products 'Bioelectrochemcial Applications for Sustainable Technologies (BeAST)', (October 2022-2026)