A.A. (Ola) Synowiec

Aleksandra has a strong interest in viral cell tropism, with a particular emphasis on coronaviruses and noroviruses and their ability to infect intestinal tissues.

A significant part of her work involves studying virus-host interactions in advanced physiologically relevant models, including patient-derived human intestinal enteroids. These primary cell models allow her to investigate viral infection in a setting that closely recapitulates the architecture and function of the human intestinal epithelium, providing important insights into tissue-specific viral susceptibility and replication dynamics.

Her current work focuses on noroviruses, with an emphasis on understanding how glycan specificity influences host restriction and cell tropism.

• 2026 – present: Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

• 2019-2025: PhD Student, Virogenetics Group, Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.

• 2023-2024: Postgraduate Fellow, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA (Fulbright Scholarship).