Ganna Galitska

Postdoctoral Fellow

Ganna obtained her bachelor’s degree with Honors at the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Ukraine. Favoring Virology, she chose it as a her major for her following master’s studies. Granted several scholarships from DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and Amgen Foundation, she spent summers doing research internships at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and Jena University Hospital. During her master’s studies she also obtained a CIMO research scholarship (Finnish Academy of Sciences)and spent time working on her Master thesis at the University of Jyvaskyla Finland, where she completely fell in love with Virology while studying the mechanisms of replication cycles in enteroviruses. After graduation, she continued her education at the Master’s Program in Biology at the LMU-Munich, and worked as a Doctoral researcher at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) Germany, supported by a DAAD stipend, focusing on adaptive immunity and mechanisms of pathogenesis of HBV infections. In 2016, she started her PhD in Herpes virology as a part of the ITN Marie Curie Program EDGE Horizon 2020 supported by the European Commission at the University of Turin. In her work, she focused on Human cytomegalovirus, its genetic variability, and interplay with innate immunity, including restriction factors. Since October 2020, she is a post doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland focusing on maturation mechanisms of enteroviruses and elucidating kinetics of viral cycles and contribution of autophagy to enterovirus release. Her current project involves long hours working on radioactive labeling of viral proteins, testing cell models for latent/lytic infections, and focusing on the specific role of autophagy in enterovirus maturation.

She enjoys climbing, camping, bouldering, nature photography, art, ethnic studies, and ancient history. In her free time, on a rainy day you can find her with her nose buried in a good book, studying a new language or planting a jungle on her balcony; or you cannot find her at all-on a sunny day she climbs mountains in all nearby (and far) national and state parks.