Lectures and seminars

• Health and Environment
• Environmental Health (ECTS courses)
• Microbiology (ECTS courses)
• Microbiology
• Molecular Biology
• Molecular Ecology
• Environmental Epidemiology

• Abiotic components of the environment II

Professional career

• 2014 – till now: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Science, Matthias Belius University, Banská Bystrica
• 10/2001– 2013 The Regional Authority of Public Health (RAPH) in Banská Bystrica, Department of Medical Microbiology: laboratory diagnostics specialist

 Professional memberships 

• Slovak Limnological Society 
• Slovak Society for Parasitology

 Personal and other interests

• mountains, sports (road cycling, hiking, skiing, swimming), dance, fine arts and design, architecture

 Education

• 1990 – 1991   Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava, The Management of Engineering production
• 1991 – 1996   M.Sc. degree – Technical University Zvolen, Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, General Ecology  https://fee.tuzvo.sk/en
• 10/2003      PhD student in external form of study programme Ecology, Technical University Zvolen, Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences
• 27.2.2006   The specialization in study programme Investigation methods in Microbiology and Biology of the Environment, Slovak Medical University in Bratislava
• 11/2010      Ph.D. in Ecology, Technical University Zvolen, Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Science

 Research interests

• Ecology and Taxonomy of Free Living Amoebae focused on potentially pathogenic species (Naegleria, Acanthamoeba, Vermamoeba vermiformis)
• Bacterial - "Trojan horse" interactions: amoeba-resisting bacteria (ARB) or amoeba-resistant microorganisms (ARM), focused on the occurrence of Legionella spp. in the Environment
• Limnology of lake ecosystems
• Bioindication of environmental changes: climate change, eutrophication, acidification - indicator potential of aquatic biota
• Paleolimnological studies of sediments using palynology for reconstruction of present and past environmental change
• Protozoology
• Parasitology
• Epidemiology and Public Health

 Research projects

• APVV-20-0358 "Reading in natural archives: ThousAnds of years of environmental history and cliMAte change Recorded in Alpine lakes of the Ukrainian Carpathians" (01/07/2021 – 30/06/2025), co-worker
• KEGA 029UMB-4/2021 "Environmental and human risk management in context of extraordinary incidents outbreak" (01/2021 – 12/2023), principal researcher
• VEGA 1/0694/21 "The influence of intra- and extracellular factors on the metabolism and motility of euglenoid flagellates" (01/01/2021 – 30/12/2024), co-worker
• APVV-15-0292 „Deglaciation and postglacial climatic evolution recorded in the lake deposits of the High Tatra Mountains“ (2016 – 2020), co-worker
• VEGA 1/0535/17 "Genetic equipment of euglenoid flagellates for intercellular communication, potential multicellularity and metabolism of sugars" (2017 – 2020), co-worker from 2018
• VEGA 1/0664/15 „A 250 year history of human impacts on a landscape of the Banská Štiavnica mining territory: a palaeolimnological reconstruction using biotic and abiotic indicators from lake sediments“ (2015 – 2017), co-worker  
• KEGA 041UK-4/2015 „Parasitic protists – a new course with an integration of modern methods of parasitological practice“ (2015 – 2017), principal researcher from the collaborating department of University 
• VEGA 1/0547/15 "Experimental Measurement and Modeling of Fugitive Emissions" (2015 – 2017), co-worker

List of selected publications (2010 - 2022)  

Prepilková, V.; Perháčová, Z.; Schwarz, M.; Trnková, K. Isolation and identification of bacterial communities in neutral mine drainage in central Slovakian neovolcanites (Slovakia) In: Geomicrobiology Journal. - New York : Taylor & Francis Group, 2022. - ISSN 0149-0451. - Vol. 39, no. 7 (2022), pp. 579-605 https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/15/5/951

Zuzana Perháčová, Peter Pristaš, Katarína Trnková, Veronika Prepilková, Marián Schwarz, Andrej Jankech, Simona Kvasnová & Jana Kisková (2022) Dynamics of the Galionella spp. and Leptothrix spp. Communities of Polluted Mine Drainage Water in Slovinky and Markušovce (Slovakia), Geomicrobiology Journal, 39:7, 597-605, DOI: 10.1080/01490451.2022.20603845

Lukáčová A, Beck T, Trnková K, Trniková M, Krajčovič J, Vesteg M. Discrimination of Euglena gracilis strains Z and bacillaris by MALDI-TOF MS. J Appl Microbiol. 2022 Aug;133(2):930-942. doi: 10.1111/jam.15600. Epub 2022 May 19. PMID: 35483969.

Fulová M., Kotrbancová M., Bražinová A., Boledovičová J., Trnková, K., Špaleková M. (2020). Legionnaires' disease in pediatric patients, control measures and 5-year follow-up, In The pediatric infectious disease journal: an official publication of the European society for paediatric infectious diseases. – Philadelphia : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2020. - ISSN 0891-3668. - Vol. 39, no. 11 (2020), pp. 990-994

Trnková, K., Kotrbancová M., Špaleková M., Fulová M., Boledovičová J., Vesteg M.  (2018). MALDI-TOF MS analysis as a useful tool for an identification of Legionella pneumophila, a facultatively pathogenic bacterium interacting with free-living amoebae: A case study from water supply system of hospitals in Bratislava (Slovakia), Experimental parasitology. - San Diego : Academic Press, 2018. - ISSN 0014-4894. - Vol. 184 (2018), pp. 97-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exppara.2017.12.002 

Bitušík, P., Trnková, K., Chamutiová, T., Sochuliaková, L., Stoklasa, J., Pipík, R., Szarlowicz, K., Szacilowski, G., Thomková, K., Šporka, F.,Starek, D., Šurka, J.,  Milovský, R. & Hamerlík, L. (2018). Tracking human impact in a mining landscape using lake sediments: A multi-proxy palaeolimnological study. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 504: 23-33.

Bitušík P., Svitok M., Novikmec M., Trnková K. & Hamerlík L. (2017). A unique way of passive dispersal of aquatic invertebrates by wind: Chironomid larvae are traveling in fragments of aquatic mosses. Limnologica-Ecology and Management of Inland Waters, 63: 119-121.

Bitušík P., Svitok M., Novikmec, M., Trnková K. & Hamerlík L. (2017). Biological recovery of acidified alpine lakes may be delayed by the dispersal limitation of aquatic insect adults. Hydrobiologia 790(1): 287-298.

Maďarová, L., Trnková, K., Feiková, S., Klement, C., Obernauerová, M. (2010). A real-time PCR diagnostic method for detection of Naegleria fowleri. Experimental parasitology. - ISSN 0014-4894. - Vol. 126, no. 1, s. 37-41.