NIB

Katarina Bačnik is employed at the National Institute of Biology (NIB), Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology, Ljubljana, Slovenia, from 2017 on, currently as Research Assistant. Her research is focused on studying the diversity of viruses in various samples from the environment and industry using high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics.

Education and work experience

Katarina Bačnik completed her master's degree in Microbiology at the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana in 2017. During her master's degree, she did two internships abroad. In 2015, she visited the Institut für biologie II, Albert Ludwigs universität Freiburg. In 2016, she did an internship at the Institut für microbiologie, Universität Innsbruck.

In 2017, she started her postgraduate studies at the Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, Ljubljana, Slovenia (program Sensor Technologies), where she defended her doctoral thesis in 2022. She completed it under the mentorship of prof. dr. Maja Ravnikar and dr. Denis Kutnjak. As part of her doctoral thesis, she investigated the viromes of water samples, invertebrate hosts and cell lines from the biopharmaceutical industry using high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics.

After completing her doctorate, she continues her research work in the field of discovering new viral sequences using data mining of previously published sequencing data, characterization of viromes of water samples and plants, and the use of bioinformatics analyzes for the characterization of viral sequences.

Selected publications:

-MEHLE, Nataša, BAČNIK, Katarina, BAJDE, Irena, BRODARIČ, Jakob, FOX, Adrian, GUTIÉRREZ-AGUIRRE, Ion, KITEK, Miha, KUTNJAK, Denis, LOH, Yue Lin, MAKSIMOVIĆ, Olivera, RAVNIKAR, Maja, VOGEL, Elise, VOS, Christine, VUČUROVIĆ, Ana. Tomato brown rugose fruit virus in aqueous environments : survival and significance of water-mediated transmission. Frontiers in plant science. 2023, vol. 14, art. 1187920, str. 1-15, ilustr. ISSN 1664-462X. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1187920, 

-RIVAREZ, Mark Paul Selda, PECMAN, Anja, BAČNIK, Katarina, MAKSIMOVIĆ, Olivera, VUČUROVIĆ, Ana, SELJAK, Gabrijel, MEHLE, Nataša, GUTIÉRREZ-AGUIRRE, Ion, RAVNIKAR, Maja, KUTNJAK, Denis. In-depth study of tomato and weed viromes reveals undiscovered plant virus diversity in an agroecosystem. Microbiome. 2023, vol. 11, art. 60, str. [1]-24, ilustr. ISSN 2049-2618. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-023-01500-6

-HILAIRE, Johny, TINDALE, Sophie, JONES, Glyn, PINGARRON-CARDENAS, Gabriela, BAČNIK, Katarina, OJO, Mercy, FREWER, Lynn J. Risk perception associated with an emerging agri-food risk in Europe : plant viruses in agriculture. Agriculture & food security. 13. Mar. 2022, vol. 11, str. 1-19, ilustr. ISSN 2048-7010.  DOI: 10.1186/s40066-022-00366-5.

-MAKSIMOVIĆ, Olivera, LENGAR, Živa, KOGEJ ZWITTER, Zala, BAČNIK, Katarina, BAJDE, Irena, MILAVEC, Mojca, ŽUPANIČ, Anže, MEHLE, Nataša, KUTNJAK, Denis, RAVNIKAR, Maja, GUTIÉRREZ-AGUIRRE, Ion. Evaluation of methods and processes for robust monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. Food and environmental virology. 23 Aug 2022, vol. 14, str. 384-400, ilustr. ISSN 1867-0334.  DOI: 10.1007/s12560-022-09533-0.

-GREGORIČ, Matjaž, KUTNJAK, Denis, BAČNIK, Katarina, GOSTINČAR, Cene, PECMAN, Anja, RAVNIKAR, Maja, KUNTNER, Matjaž. Spider webs as eDNA samplers : biodiversity assessment across the tree of life. Molecular ecology resources. 2022, vol. 22, issue 7, str. 2534-2545, ilustr., graf. prikazi, tabele. ISSN 1755-098X. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1755-0998.13629, DOI: 10.1111/1755-0998.13629.

-FILIPIĆ, Arijana, LUKEŽIČ, Tadeja, BAČNIK, Katarina, RAVNIKAR, Maja, JEŠELNIK, Meta, KOŠIR, Tamara, PETKOVŠEK, Martin, ZUPANC, Mojca, DULAR, Matevž, GUTIÉRREZ-AGUIRRE, Ion. Hydrodynamic cavitation efficiently inactivates potato virus Y in water. Ultrasonics Sonochemistry. January 2022, vol. 82, str. [1-19], ilustr. ISSN 1350-4177.  DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2021.105898.

-BAČNIK, Katarina, KUTNJAK, Denis, JERIČ KOKELJ, Barbara, TUTA, Nika, LONČAR, Tan, VOGELSANG, Matjaž, RAVNIKAR, Maja. Metagenomic characterization of parental and production CHO cell lines for detection of adventitious viruses. Biologicals. Jan. 2021, vol. 69, str. 70-75. ISSN 1045-1056. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045105620301354, DOI: 10.1016/j.biologicals.2020.11.001.

-BAČNIK, Katarina, KUTNJAK, Denis, ČERNI, Silvija, BIELEN, Ana, HUDINA, Sandra. Virome analysis of signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) along its invasion range reveals diverse and divergent RNA viruses. Viruses. 2021, vol. 13, iss. 11, str. 1-21, ilustr. ISSN 1999-4915.  DOI: 10.3390/v13112259. [

-BAČNIK, Katarina, KUTNJAK, Denis, PECMAN, Anja, MEHLE, Nataša, TUŠEK-ŽNIDARIČ, Magda, GUTIÉRREZ-AGUIRRE, Ion, RAVNIKAR, Maja. Viromics and infectivity analysis reveal the release of infective plant viruses from wastewater into the environment. Water research. 2020, vol. 177, str. 1-11. ISSN 0043-1354. DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2020.115628

-MALL, Achim, SOBOTTA, Jessica, HUBER, Claudia, TSCHIRNER, Carolin, KOWARSCHIK, Stefanie, BAČNIK, Katarina, MERGELSBERG, Mario, BOLL, Matthias, HÜGLER, Michael, EISENREICH, Wolfgang, BERG, Ivan A. Reversibility of citrate synthase allows autotrophic growth of a thermophilic bacterium. Science. 2018, vol. 359, iss. 6375, str. 563-567. ISSN 0036-8075.  DOI: 10.1126/science.aao2410.