Karen Butina Ogorelec is a researcher at InnoRenew CoE and works within the Materials research department.

She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in biotechnology at the University of Ljubljana and her Master’s degree and PhD in biomedicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. During her PhD she worked on the development of novel electrochemical and fluorescence based methods for detection and quantification of bacteria. After her PhD, Karen worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana, where her project focused on the use of CRISPR/Cas9 for genome editing in immune cells.

At InnoRenew CoE she is employed as a postdoctoral fellow on the ARCHI-SKIN project where the aim is to employ fungal biofilms as self-healing proctective coatings.

In her free time she does various sports or goes out for theatre or cinema.