Karina Kawka

I am a final-year PhD Candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University in Canada, co-advised by Professors David Latulippe and Raja Ghosh. My thesis focuses on the development of scalable and cost-effective downstream processes for the purification of therapeutic viruses. The work is centered on applying membrane chromatography for the removal of host-cell impurities, but it also integrates the study of other unit operations and the use of process simulation tools (BioSolve) for the economic analysis of virus manufacturing processes. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Bioprocess Engineering and Biotechnology from the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil and this year I have received a 2021 Student Fellowship Award from the North American Membrane Society and the 2021 AIChE Separations Division Graduate Student Research Award in the Bioseparations Area.