Invited speakers

Speaker: dr hab. Agata Starosta, The Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Talk:  Translation in Bacillus subtilis is spatially and temporally coordinated during sporulation

Time: 25.04.2025, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Agata Starosta completed her PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Daniel Wilson at Gene Center, Ludwig-Maximillians University in Munich, Germany. Later on, she was awarded an AXA Research PostDoc Fellowship to study the role of translational factor EF-P in protein biosynthesis, and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship to study the regulation of sporulation in Bacillus subtilis on the translational level. After receiving the First Team grant from the Foundation for Polish Science and EMBO Installation grant, she moved to Poland, and as a Principal Investigator at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, to start her own group researching translation regulation and specialized ribosomes in Bacillus subtilis. In Spring 2021, she moved her lab to the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw to start new projects on the regulation of gene expression in antibiotic-producing soil bacteria.

Her work has resulted in 40 international peer-reviewed research articles, a collaboration with a Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Tom Steitz. She has experience in combining biochemistry with structural biology, genetics, microscopy and high-throughput approaches, especially next-generation sequencing techniques to study complex processes in bacterial cells, especially protein synthesis, antibiotics targeting translation, antibiotic resistance mechanisms and translation regulation.

Speaker: Dr Tomasz Wypych, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Warsaw

Talk:  Microbiota-derived bile acid ameliorates lung inflammation through metabolic rewiring of alveolar macrophages

Time: 06.12.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

The gut microbiota profoundly shapes our immunity, acting locally in the gut and distally in other organs, such as the lungs . These wide ranging effects are achieved, at least in part, through microbial metabolites released into circulation. Secondary bile acids, which are derived from the transformation of host-derived bile acids by the gut microbiota, have recently emerged as potent anti-inflammatory mediators in the intestine, affecting the differentiation of CD4+ T cells and the function of dendritic cells. Despite this, it remains unclear which bile acid species display the most pronounced effects and what mechanisms are implicated.To fill in this gap, we comprehensively screened a library of primary, conjugated, and secondary bile acids for their ability to suppress the inflammatory response in the airways. We identified one particular species belonging to secondary bile acids (hereinafter referred to as “the Metabolite X” due to pending patent application), which profoundly inhibited the inflammatory response in the lungs. Met. X acted through Sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 2 (S1PR2) to induce metabolic rewiring of alveolar macrophages, dampening the production of chemokines (predominantly CXCL9, CXCL10, and CXCL11), and reactive oxygen species. Collectively, our data identify the microbiota-dependent secondary bile acid that ameliorates lung inflammation through S1PR2-dependent metabolic rewiring of alveolar macrophages.

Dr inż. Tomasz Wypych is the head of the Host-Microbiota Laboratory at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. He obtained his PhD in 2016 from the University of Bern, under the supervision of Prof. Federica Sallusto. His PhD thesis concerned the role of B cells as antigen presenting cells in asthma. He then completed his postdoctoral training at Lausanne University Hospital and Monash University focusing on the cross-talk between host cells and the microbiota in shaping susceptibility to asthma. His current research revolves around the effects of microbial metabolites on immunity. Major scientific achievements of Dr. Wypych include publication of 17 peer-reviewed articles in the area of immunology and microbiome. He is also an author of 2 patent applications and secured funding for 5 major grants (IDEAS grant, NHMRC Australia; Sonata grant, NCN Poland; OPUS grant, NCN Poland, First Team FENG grant, FNP Poland and OPUS+LAP grant, NCN, Poland and SNSF, Switzerland). Finally, he was awarded the Scholarship from the Ministry of Science and Education for Outstanding Young Scientists.

Speaker: dr Agata Motyka-Pomagruk - Research and Development Laboratory, Laboratory of Plant Protection and Biotechnology, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG

Talk:  Development of innovative approaches to control bacterial plant pathogens and impair the spread of multidrug resistance in the natural environment

Time: 29.11.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Agata Motyka-Pomagruk works as an assistant professor and deputy quality manager at the accredited by Polish Centre for Accreditation for compliance with ISO 17025 and certified according to ISO 14001 Research & Development Laboratory of Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology University of Gdańsk and Medical University of Gdańsk. Co-author of 42 scientific publications and 4 book chapters, principal investigator of Preludium 11 (National Science Centre in Poland), executor in other 22 projects, completed research internships at Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (Lyon, France), University of Florence (Italy) and Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (As, Norway), co-author of the implementation, 5 national patents and 7 patent applications (including two international ones), scholarship holder of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the competition for outstanding young scientists (2023), awarded by Prime Minister for outstanding doctoral dissertation (2020), co-author and author of over 84 conference reports, president of Gdańsk Department of Polish Phytopathological Society.

In this seminar, Dr. A. Motyka-Pomagruk will present accomplishments forming her application for habilitation that are focused on three topics: i) increasing knowledge on genomics and phenotypic characteristics of phytopathogenic bacteria from the Pectobacteriaceae family, ii) development of innovative methods for controlling bacterial plant pathogens, based on direct or indirect use of cold atmospheric plasmas and iii) examination of innovative methods of antibiotic degradation using cold atmospheric plasmas in order to limit development and spread of multidrug resistance in the natural environment. Her main research interests involve broadly understood environmental and clinical microbiology, phytopathology, comparative genomics, bioinformatics, statistical analyzes and visualization of biological data, methods of detecting, identifying and eradicating bacterial pathogens.

Speaker: Dr Piotr Gerlach, The International Institute of Molecular Mechanisms and Machines Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw

Talk:  Functional connection between the transcribing bunyaviral polymerase and the translating ribosome

Time: 15.11.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Piotr Gerlach is heading the Laboratory of Structural Virology at Imol Polish Academy of Sciences. He joined IMol in 2021 within the frame of the FNP-founded ReMedy IRAP. Originally from Warsaw, during his PhD in Dr. Stephen Cusack’s group at EMBL in Grenoble, he succeeded in determining the first atomic structure of a bunyaviral L protein polymerase. Securing an EMBO Long Term Fellowship, he joined Prof. Elena Conti’s lab at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, where he used cryo-EM to study multi-subunit complexes involved in RNA metabolism. Dr. Gerlach’s group at Imol, supported by EMBO IG and NCN SONATA BIS grants, studies how infectious RNA viruses reorganize and exploit cellular translation.

Translation is one of the major sites of the virus-host battlefront. On the one hand, infected cells shut down most of the translation, activating innate immune and integrated stress response pathways at the same time. At the same time, RNA viruses, being unconditionally dependent on cellular protein synthesis machinery, use a range of strategies to reorganize and exploit cellular translation, forcing ribosomes to translate viral mRNA. Dr. Gerlach’s group is particularly interested in bunyaviruses – a large and understudied group of segmented, negative-strand RNA viruses. In his lecture, he will cover functional and structural aspects of the bunyaviral L protein polymerases and he will discuss the preliminary insights into the bunyaviral transcription-translation coupling mechanism.

Speaker: Dr. Hans Spelbrink, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Talk:  The interplay of mtDNA maintenance proteins and mtRNA homeostasis, and how to study it

Time: 18.10.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Hans Spelbrink is a molecular cell biologist currently working at the Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Since his PhD he has a long track record in mitochondrial research that has throughout the more than 25 years of research concentrated on mtDNA, its maintenance and expression. After moving to Finland in 1997, where he did a postdoc and subsequently started his own laboratory, he initiated the development of a polymerase gamma mutator model in human cells that has contributed also to the development of the mouse POLG1 mutator model (published in 2004), the analysis of which I took part in. In 2001, in a landmark paper published in Nature Genetics, he identified a novel mtDNA maintenance protein, which was the long sought-after mtDNA helicase, Twinkle, that was at the same time identified as the first mtDNA replication factor involved in human disease, namely autosomal dominant progressive external ophthalmoplegia. In two collaborative studies, Twinkle later also was shown to be involved in a recessive ataxia and in mtDNA depletion syndrome. Several subsequent studies (the most important ones published in 2007 & 2009) characterized Twinkle protein function using inducible cell cultures. These studies also addressed the mechanisms of mtDNA replication as did several other joint publications in more recent years. The characterization of Twinkle also provided the first clear demonstration that mtDNA in mammals (as shown in yeast many years earlier) was organized in discrete protein-DNA complexes within the mitochondrial network which contradicted the commonly held textbook view at that time that mammalian mtDNA was ‘naked’. In 2003 the nucleoid view was consolidated by demonstrating several other proteins such as TFAM and mtSSB to co-purify and co-localize with mtDNA in discrete structures. This research also suggested that nucleoids are amenable to biochemical isolation as he and others have shown in more recent publications. In 2010 he moved back to the Netherlands to join the Nijmegen Centre for Mitochondrial Disorders where he focused on establishing methods to more systematically identify nucleoid proteins using nucleoid targeted isolation methods in combination with mass-spectrometry. This research, in the last 5 years, has extended towards the more general identification and characterization of proteins involved with all aspects of mitochondrial gene expression. In his seminar, he will focus on the interplay between mtDNA maintenance and mitochondrial RNA homeostasis, focussing on cell biological and proteomic aspects of this interplay.

Speaker: dr hab. Maurycy Daroch, School of Environment and Energy, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, China

Talk:  Rethinking Cyanobacteria: Photosynthetic Biotechnology for Net Zero

Time: 28.06.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Over the last 2.5 billion years, cyanobacteria equipped with the Calvin cycle transformed the atmosphere and fertilised our entire planet, allowing for the evolution of complex life forms, including humans. This makes these photosynthetic bacteria arguably the most important group of microorganisms to have ever existed on Earth. Since their early divergence from anoxygenic ancestors, cyanobacteria colonised the entire planet and developed a remarkable diversity of primary and secondary metabolism.

This diversity and metabolic flexibility present an intriguing opportunity for waste valorization, offering a potential solution for simultaneously closing carbon, nitrogen, and micronutrient loops of various industries while generating valuable products such as biochemicals, biofuels and active compounds.

The presentation showcases the diversity of this group and their successful utilization, for valorisation of carbon, nitrogen and sulphur from various wastes. The associated biobased value chains brings about the valorisation of anthropogenic waste into an array of natural (phycoerythrins, phycocyanins, myxoxantophylls) and engineered bioproducts such as isoprene, ethylene and 3-hydroxypropionate in line with the biorefinery approach.

To maximize the performance of these photosynthetic microbial cell factories, we developed and explored the concept of miniploidy, a method of genome number control and refined genetic transformation protocols to facilitate fast mutant generation and decrease the genetic instability in the biosynthesis of valuable products.

More recently we embarked on the exciting journey to alter the central metabolic pathways of carbon fixation and developed the concept of cyanobacterial photochemotrophy. The ultimate goal of this new type of metabolism is to entirely replace the inefficient Calvin cycle and allow the new iteration of refactored cyanobacteria to once again take the central stage in carbon fixation on Earth and play a pivotal role in reversing anthropogenic climate change.

Speaker: dr Paolo Maiuri, University of Naples, Italy

Talk:  Force-biased nuclear import sets nuclear-cytoplamic volumetric coupling by osmosis

Time: 17.05.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr Paolo Maiuri is a biophysicist with experience in quantitative biology. He did his PhD in HIV transcription at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Trieste, Italy. Then, he moved to Paris to Institute Curie to study cell biology of cell polarity and  division. In 2015 he become a principal investigator in IFOM-IEO Institute in Milan, Italy where he investigated nuclear polarity and cell migration. Currently, he works at the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy where his main interest is to how cells sense and react to external physical cues and how this impacts on tumor onset or evolution. He combines cell biology approaches with quantitative imaging and micro-fabrication to decipher basic biological functions. He is author or co-author of >50 scientific articles published in the most prestigious journals including PNAS, Science, Science Immunology,  Nature Cell Biology, Nature Communications, Cell, Nature Materials.

Speaker: dr Severin Ronneau, University of Namur, Belgium

Talk:  When Antibiotics Fail: Understanding Bacterial Persistence During Infection

Time: 26.01.2024, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Séverin Ronneau completed his Ph.D. in Microbiology in 2016 at the University of Namur, Belgium. During his thesis, he discovered a novel pathway regulating (p)ppGpp stress alarmone accumulation in Caulobacter and Sinorhizobium in response to nitrogen starvation. After completing his thesis, he was awarded a long-term EMBO fellowship to investigate antibiotic persistence during infection in Sophie Helaine's lab at the CMBI in London, and later at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. Following his postdoc, he secured a Marie Sklodowska Curie grant to advance his independent research in Namur, Belgium. Currently, he is exploring the regulation of (p)ppGpp in Salmonella during infection, drawing upon his expertise from both his Ph.D. and postdoc experiences.

In this seminar, Dr. Séverin Ronneau will discuss his recent work on antibiotic persisters during infection. Bacterial persistence, characterized by chronic and relapsing infections, poses a significant threat to human health, causing considerable morbidity and often requiring multiple courses of antibiotics. Such long-lasting infections are caused by various bacterial pathogens, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus aureus, and pathogenic Escherichia coli. During infection, Salmonella specifically responds to engulfment by host macrophages by forming high proportions of antibiotic persisters. These persisters evade the combined action of antibiotics and host immune killing mechanisms for prolonged periods by adopting a non-growing state. However, the molecular mechanisms that govern the formation, maintenance, and regrowth of persisters are not yet fully understood. Dr. Séverin Ronneau will discuss the factors that control persister physiology inside immune cells and how we can leverage this knowledge to sensitize these cells to antibiotics, thereby reducing the risk of relapse

Speaker: dr Aleksandra Rutkowska, Medical University of Gdansk

Talk:  Stimulating myelin repair in the central nervous system

Time: 24.11.2023, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Ola Rutkowska is a translational neuroscientist at the Medical University of Gdansk. She earned her master's degree in Neuroscience from Trinity College Dublin in 2010, during which she conducted research at a pharmaceutical company Actelion in Switzerland investigating sphingosine-1-phosphate agonists immunomodulatory function in primary rodent microglia. Her doctoral research in Molecular Neuropharmacology, also at Trinity College Dublin, was co-funded by the Irish Research Council and a Swiss pharmaceutical giant – Novartis. This unique collaboration enriched her expertise in both academic scientific research and the pharmaceutical industry. During her doctoral studies, Ola focused on understanding the EBI2 receptor's expression and function within the CNS. She discovered EBI2 receptor in astrocytes, unravelled its role as an immune modulator in the CNS and shed light on its involvement in myelination.

During her post-doc at St. Jamses’ university hospital in Dublin she joined a JPND-funded project BiomarkAPD in which she focused on biomarkers for dementia diagnosis, subsequently leading her to explore less invasive alternatives to cerebrospinal fluid sampling, such as blood-based biomarkers and setting up her own startup Labertis Scientific.

Throughout her career, Ola has secured various grants and funding opportunities. In 2015 she received the POLONEZ grant from NCN and returned to Poland after over 11 years spent in Ireland and Switzerland. In Gdansk she started her own research group at the Medical University of Gdansk. Subsequently, she received the OPUS grant and recently a SONATA. This year Ola has also received the Ministry for Science and Education scholarship for exceptional young scientists and the L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science award.

Currently, Ola is an Assistant Professor at the dept. of Anatomy and Neurobiology, a PI and the Deputy Head at the Brain Diseases Centre at MUG. She leads a team comprising four PhD and two master's students working on projects spanning a range of topics including myelination and the pathophysiology of the BBB and targeting a number of receptors and channels such as EBI2, Piezo1, GPP65, GPR4, GPR68.

Speaker: prof. dr hab. Marcin Nowotny, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw - IIMCB

Talk:  Mechanisms of bacterial DNA repair

Time: 17.11.2023, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Marcin Nowotny graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw in 1998. In 2002 he defended his doctoral thesis at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. He received the title of professor in 2020. In 2003-2008, he worked in the group of Dr. Wei Yang at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, USA. Since 2008 he heads the Protein Structure Laboratory at the International Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in Warsaw, Poland. He is a member of several international scientific societies and organizations (Academia Europaea, European Molecular Biology Organization). He is a laureate of the Foundation for Polish Science Award (2022) for research on the molecular mechanisms of DNA damage and its repair. Marcin Nowotny uses structural biology to understand the mechanisms of processing of nucleic acids - DNA and RNA. He is particularly interested in DNA repair pathways, DNA transposition, reverse transcription, RNA processing and the mechanism of action of nucleic acid therapeutics. Laboratory link:https://www.iimcb.gov.pl/en/research/6-laboratory-of-protein-structure

Speaker:  Dr Nicole-Hugouvieux-Cotte-Pattat, University of Lyon, Laboratory MAP CNRS UMR5240

Talk:  Investigation of pectinolytic bacteria in surface waters, update of the outline of the Pectobacteriaceae family

Time: 06.10.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Nicole Hugouvieux-Cotte-Pattat got a PhD in microbiology in 1981, delivered by INSA-Lyon and Lyon 1 University, on the Escherichia coli metabolic pathways used for hexuronate degradation. In 1982, she obtained a permanent researcher position at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France). She studied the different pectinases involved in the degradation of pectin by the plant pathogenic bacterium Dickeya dadantii (called at the time Erwinia chrysanthemi). Pectinolytic enzymes are essential factors of the bacterial virulence against plants. She obtained the research habilitation in 1987 and she had a post-doctoral position at the University of Geneva in 1988-1989, to study the expression of genes of the TOL catabolic plasmid of Pseudomonas putida. From 1994, she supervised her team studying the virulence functions of the plant pathogenic bacterium Dickeya dadantii. She explored the D. dadantii genes involved in virulence, the regulation of their expression and the metabolic pathways necessary for the assimilation of plant compounds. From 1995 to 2005, she was the deputy director of the laboratory Microbiology and Genetics. In 2005, she created the laboratory Microbiology, Adaptation and Pathogenesis (MAP, UMR5240) supported by CNRS, INSA and Lyon 1 University. She directed this laboratory until 2015. From 2016 to 2020, she headed a molecular biology platform of the Lyon University. She developed genomic approaches to investigate the diversity of the genus Dickeya by analysing poorly characterized strains from old collections and carrying out surveys of Dickeya strains present in the environment, particularly in lake water. These recent works enable her to describe three new Dickeya species, D. lacustris, D. parazeae and D. poaceiphila and a new genus Musicola inside the Pectobacteriaceae family.

The Pectobacteriaceae family includes plant pathogenic bacteria able to provoke various diseases, in particular plant maceration due to the production of pectinases attacking the plant cell wall. To better understand their natural diversity, a survey of pectinolytic bacteria was carried out in lakes of the French region La Camargue near the Mediterranean Sea. Numerous isolates of two Dickeya species were found in this type of surface water. In addition, some atypical pectinolytic isolates were recovered from some lakes containing brackish water. In phylogenetic trees, the novel strains forms a new clade of Pectobacteriaceae, distinct from the previously known genera of this family. Based on phenotypic, genomic and phylogenetic characteristics, we propose the creation of a new genus for these pectinolytic isolates. Our phylogenomic studies confirm that Symbiopectobacterium also belongs to the Pectobacteriaceae family but indicate that the genus Acerihabitans should be reclassified in the Bruguierivoracaceae family.

Speaker:  prof. Andrzej Dziembowski, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw

Talk:  Ribonucleases and poly(A) polymerases in health and disease

Time: 02.06.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Andrzej Dziembowski is the head of an ERA Chair Group at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, is a professor at the Warsaw University Faculty of Biology, and holds the Waclaw Szybalski Honorary Chair at the University of Gdańsk. He is also a member of EMBO and Academia Europaea.

Prof. Dziembowski graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw, where he received his PhD. For several years, he worked at the CNRS Center for Molecular Genetics in Gif-sur- Yvette, France. He then headed an independent laboratory at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. In 2019, the laboratory moved to the International Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in Warsaw.

Prof. Dziembowski’s primary research interest is posttranscriptional gene expression regulation. Currently, the lab studies RNA biology at the organism level, using Direct RNA Sequencing as an experimental approach and transgenic mouse lines as a model system.

Prof. Dziembowski is the author of more than 100 research articles, many of which have been published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Cell, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Genes and Development, Molecular Cell, EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports. His research has been supported by numerous national and international grants, including ERC Advanced Grant (2022).

Speaker:  Prof. Richard Weller, University of Edinburgh

Talk: ‘Sunshine and health - more than just vitamin D and skin cancer’

Time:  11.05.2023, 14:30 pm (Thursday!)

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Prof. Richard Weller is a dermatologist and a scientist. He graduated in medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, University of London (now part of King's College, London) and then undertook my general/internal medicine training in the north of England and in Australia. Following this, he specialized in dermatology at the Institute of Dermatology (St John's) in London, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

In parallel to his clinical training, he also pursued research, with a scholarship from the University of Edinburgh, and spent three years in postdoctoral research training at Heinrich-Heine Universität in Dusseldorf, and at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. He came back to the UK as a Senior Lecturer and then a Reader in Dermatology and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh.

Currently, Richard is engaged both in clinical duties as an honorary NHS Consultant Dermatologist and in research at the University of Edinburgh and as the NHS Dermatology lead. He is also active in teaching as a Programme Director of the Masters in Medical Science degree. He is also very active in public engagement; his TED talk presenting his research, which has now been viewed more than 1 million times.

Richard’s interests include skin disease, especially eczema and psoriasis, and UV light exposure on human health, including cardiovascular risk and cancer. He carries out basic research and translation studies and published his work in both dermatology and high-profile internal medicine journals, including NEJM, J Allergy and Clin Immunol, Brit J Dermatol, JAMA Cardiology, Diabetologia.

Speaker:  Dr Christophe Rouillon, Institute of Structural Biology, University of Bonn, Germany

Talk:  How prokaryotes are teaching us about our immunity

Time:  28.04.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Christophe Rouillon is a biochemist specialised on informational events and immunity in prokaryotes. After his degree in biotechnology from Nancy University (France) he worked 5 years in French Institutes (Curie, Pasteur, IRD) and pharmaceutical company Eurofin before doing a Master and PhD at the French Marine Institute (Ifremer, Brest) with Dr Joel Querellou. His PhD focussed on the DNA replication factors of an hyperthermophilic archaea. He then moved to St Andrews University (Scotland) in Prof Malcolm White lab to work on archaeal DNA repair before joining the CRISPR adventure in the same lab. Since 2009, Christophe worked mostly on the CRISPR systems at a molecular level in the UK (St Andrews Uni) and Germany (Leipzig Uni, Max Planck Berlin/Bonn and Bonn Uni). He is currently very interested in newly discovered prokaryotic defence systems.

Speaker:  Magdalena Weidner-Glunde, Ph.D. DSc, Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn

Talk:  The molecular mechanisms of congenital infection with betaherpesvirus - the human cytomegalovirus - focusing on the issue of latency establishment

Time:  14.04.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Magdalena Weidner-Glunde graduated with a bachelor's degree with honors and summa cum laude in Biology with a major in Cell Biology and Physiology and a second individual major: Chemistry/Mathematics/Informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the USA. In 2000, she was accepted into the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA where in 2005 she defended her dissertation, done under the supervision of Prof. Diane Hayward, on the molecular mechanisms of persistence of gammaherpesvirus - Kaposi's sarcoma virus. Both as part of her PhD and later, while working as a post-doc in the laboratory of Prof. Thomas Schulz at the Institute of Virology at Medizinische Hochschule Hannover in Germany, she explored the molecular mechanisms of oncogenic gammaherpesvirus persistence. In 2018, after returning to Poland, Dr. Weidner-Glunde established her own research group and the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology and Virology at the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn. Dr. Weidner-Glunde's team currently studies the molecular mechanisms of congenital infection with betaherpesvirus - the human cytomegalovirus - focusing on the issue of latency establishment.

Speaker:  dr George DiCenzo, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada

Talk:  Optimizing a microbial platform to break down and valorize waste plastic

Time:  17.03.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. George diCenzo during his BSc worked in the group of Prof. Turlough Finan, for which he got a degree in 2012 in Molecular Biology and Genetics from McMaster University in Canada. Also in Dr. Finan's group Dr. George DiCenzo completed his PhD in 2017 in Biology. Subsequently, he joined the group of Prof. Alessio Mengoni at the University of Florence (Italy) as a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow, where he also worked closely with Prof. Marco Fondi. During this time, he also did a two months internship in the group of Peter Mergaert at a CNRS institute close to Paris in France. In 2017 Dr. DiCenzo was awarded with the Armand Frappier Outstanding Student Award from the Canadian Society of Microbiology for his PhD research on bacterial genome organization. Since 2019 he is hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Queen's University. He leads a research group that uses wetlab and bioinformatics methods to study diverse topics in microbiology, with a focus on the genomics and biology of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, the biodegradation of plastics, and soil microbial communities. He is a co-author of 49 research papers in prestigious journals including for instance Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or Nature Communications. Outside of the lab, Dr. DiCenzo enjoys travelling and supporting hockey teams, in his case the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Speaker:  dr hab. Maciej Chałubiński, Medical University in Łódź

Talk:  The lung vascular endothelium as an innate sensor of respiratory virues and its significance in the immunopathology of respiratory viral infections

Time:  13.01.2023, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Maciej Chałubiński, MD, PhD, is a clinician, specializing in allergology, internal medicine, and continuing with a clinical immunology specialization. After graduation with a medical degree from the Medical University of Łódź (2002) Maciej carried out postgraduate research training at Utrecht University in the Netherlands; in 2008 he obtained his PhD in Immunology through the training at the Department of Clinical Immunology, Rheumatology and Allergy at the University of Łódź.

In 2008-2010 Maciej held a post-doctoral position at the Swiss Institute of Allergy and Asthma Research (SIAF) in Davos at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, funded by a fellowship of the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (GA2LEN) under by 6th EU Research Framework as well as the fellowship from European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI). He returned to his home university in 2010 as a teaching adjunct and then between 2012-2016 Maciej was leading the Laboratory of Tissue Immunopharmacology, at the Department of Internal Diseases and Clinical Pharmacology. He was awarded habilitation in internal medicine in 2016.

Currently Maciej is the head of the Department of Immunology and Allergy, where he combines clinical duties with research involvement. Maciej obtained funding for multiple research projects from National Science Centre projects; he also chairs Polish sides of two Horizon EU consortia. In addition, he is actively participating in the organization and editorial involvement, as the president of the thematic section of the Polish Society of Allergology: "Microbiom, infections and allergy", and Editor in Chief of “Allergy, Asthma, Immunology ‐ clinical review”. He is an author of 42 international scientific articles in the field of immunology, virology, allergy, and cardiology, including publications in Allergy and J Allergy Clin Immunol as well as an author of book chapters in allergology.

Maciej’s research interests involve the role of the lung vascular endothelium and bronchial epithelium in the immunopathology of airway viral infections and asthma, innate immunity, trained immunity, and allergy.

Speaker:  dr Marta Brandt, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, US

Talk:  Translational genetics reveals insight into protective tissue immunity

Time:  16.12.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr. Marta Brandt obtained both her BCs and MCs at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology at the University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk. She conducted her master thesis research in Molecular Bacteriology Group led by Prof. dr hab Michal Obuchowski. After graduating in 2011, she obtained La Caixa fellowship to pursue her graduate studies at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in Madrid. During her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Nabil Djouder she was investigating contribution of nutrient signaling and mTOR kinase to the development of colorectal cancer in mouse models. Her research demonstrated that inhibition of mTOR has dual outcomes depending on the etiology of the tumor. After defending her PhD in 2017, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Ramnik Xavier at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in 2018,  first as a Postdoc and now as a Research Scientist. Her work is focused on translating human genetics to functional biology related to antifungal immune response and inflammatory bowel disease.

Speaker:  dr Grzegorz Grabe, Harvard Medical School, US

Talk:  Structural basis for dynamic regulation of expression of a toxin-antitoxin system in Salmonella

Time:  09.12.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Novotel Gdańsk Marina

Grzegorz Grabe received his BSc (2007) and MSc (2010) degrees at Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology in University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk. In 2011 he was awarded the Wellcome Trust MRes+PhD studentship that he undertook at Imperial College London in a research group of Professor David Holden. While there, he studied virulence of an intracellular bacterial pathogen, Salmonella enterica. Having obtained his PhD degree in 2016, he then joined the lab of Professor Sophie Helaine at Imperial College London and later Harvard Medical School to study mechanisms of neutralization and regulation of Salmonella enterica toxin-antitoxin systems.

Speaker:  dr Wojciech Pokrzywa, Laboratory of Protein Metabolism at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw

Talk:  A molecular switch to adjust activity and specificity of the quality control ubiquitin ligase CHIP

Time:  25.11.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Dr hab. Wojciech Pokrzywa is a molecular biologist heading the Laboratory of Protein Metabolism at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw. His research focuses on the ubiquitin-proteasome system, chaperone network, regulation of translation, and muscular exophers in proteostasis. His laboratory uses a combination of biochemical, microscopic, molecular genetics, and bioinformatics techniques, supported by mammalian cell assays and the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.

Wojciech received his first M.Sc. degree in Microbiology at the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Next, he moved to Belgium, where he obtained his second M.Sc. degree and his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering and Agronomic Sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Germany, in the group of prof. Thorsten Hoppe, during which he published in, i.a., Cell, Cell Metabolism, Nature Communications, or Nature Structural & Molecular biology. Since 2017 he runs his own interdisciplinary research group at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw and has already published several articles in journals such as EMBO Journal, EMBO reports, Molecular Cell, and Nature Communications.

Wojciech is an awardee of multiple national and European grants, many of which are for highly collaborative projects with Polish and international groups. He received OPUS, GRIEG, and SONATA BIS from the National Science Centre (Poland), FIRST TEAM from the Foundation for Polish Science, EMBO Installation Grant, and funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the consortium project on mechanical stress protection. Wojciech is also a keen science popularizer – apart from conducting the lectures at the Festival of Science in Warsaw, he recently received a Social Responsibility of Science grant from the Ministry of Education and Science for developing an educational computer game about the mechanisms of protein degradation. In addition, Wojciech is also a successful mentor of early career researchers, as his Ph.D. students receive prestigious awards, including the PRELUDIUM grants from the National Science Centre (Poland) or Fulbright Junior Research Award. .

Speaker:  prof. Bartosz Szczesny, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, USA

Talk:  "Mitochondrial DNA: bystander or active contributor to inflammation?"

Time:  18.11.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Bartosz Szczesny, PhD is an associate professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and Anesthesiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, Texas. He completed his MSc and PhD at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and postdoctoral training at UTMB. The focus of his research group is to understand the role of mitochondrial dysfunction, particularly mitochondrial DNA damage and repair, in physiological and pathological conditions. He will be discussing the dual role of mitochondrial DNA that is actively released from injured cells via extracellular vesicles as an important signaling molecule in the induction of inflammatory response, and as a novel marker of cell injury. He will present recent advances in understanding the novel role of damaged mitochondrial DNA derived from epithelial cells in activation of microglia in the central nervous system/retina and alveolar macrophages in lungs. He will also present recently developed and validated method for fast, inexpensive, and accurate measurement of cell free DNA as a liquid biopsy technology for the early detection and quantitative monitoring of trauma severity. He will be discussing the presence of cell/organ specific markers within circulating extracellular vesicles containing DNA as a novel biomarker for the assessment of traumatic brain injury. His research is supported by NIH, NSF, and private foundations.

Speaker:  dr Andrzej Sosnicki, Global Technical Projects, US

Talk:  "Applications of Genetic and Genomic Technologies in Animal Production"

Time:  28.10.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Andrzej Sosnicki received his MS in Biology/Animal Physiology and Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences/Muscle Biology from the University of Life Sciences in Poznan, Poland. As an Assistant and then Associate Professor he was conducting skeletal muscle physiology and pathology research, and he taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the Department of Zootechnical Sciences.

In 1985 Andrzej relocated to the Muscle Biology & Meat Science Laboratory, University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied muscle histopathology and meat quality of poultry and red-meat animals. Subsequently, in 1988 he moved to the Department of Zoology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he researched skeletal muscle physiology & locomotion. In 1989 Andrzej  joined the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, where he further focused on studying physiological principles of skeletal muscle function during locomotion.

In 1990 Dr. Sosnicki relocated back to Madison, WI where he worked at the R&D Department of Oscar Mayer Foods Corporation (OMFC)/Kraft Foods Corp. At OMFC he was a Manager of the Animal & Poultry Research division directing integrative research focusing on creating value in vertically integrated poultry & pork production and meat processing systems.

In 1995 joined PIC to establish and manage the company’s Muscle Biology Program, emphasizing the commercial importance of pig carcass value in Pig Improvement Company (PIG) genetic improvement program. During his tenure at PIC, he has also developed and managed PIC’s Performance Validation Program, and he has been Director of Genus-PIC Global Technical Services. He has also been responsible for P&L of business accounts in North and Latin America and in the EU. Dr. Sosnicki is currently Director of Global Technical Projects further integrating pig growth and skeletal muscle physiology into the matrix of PIC’s genetic improvement program.

Dr. Sosnicki is the author/co-author of over forty publications, six book chapters and several popular-science articles. He was an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Animal Science of Iowa State University, Ames, IA in 2002-2010, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Animal & Avian Sciences of the University of Maryland, College Park, MD in 2016-2019. He is a reviewer of American Meats Science Association’s ‘Myth Crusher’, Meat Science, Livestock Sciences (also a member of the Editorial Committee), and Journal of Animal Science scientific magazines. He received American Meat Institute Distinguished Extension-Industry Service Award in 2013 and American Meat Science Association’s International Lectureship Award in 2015.

The title of the Seminar “Applications of Genetic and Genomic Technologies in Animal Production” clearly implies that the seminar will primarily focus on the practical aspects of Animal Breeding & Production, although the information will not be all inclusive due to limited time availability. We will discuss the value of animal genetic and genomics tools, computation technology, elite farms housing pure lines, commercial lines, and cross-bred pedigreed populations as the foundation of the best possible rates of genetic improvement.

Today, the global production-to-consumption animal-source food systems are complex, and  meats now are safer, tastier, more nutritious, abundant, diverse, and convenient, and less costly than ever before. Future advancements in genetic and genomic selection will enable implementation of more complex and successful breeding programs further contributing to the success of the modern, sustainable pork production.

Speaker:  prof. Sara Brown, The University of Edinburgh, UK

Talk:  "Genetic mechanisms in atopic eczema – from population to cell biology"

Time:  21.10.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042B

Speaker: dr Erwan Gueguen, University of Lyon, Laboratory MAP CNRS UMR5240

Talk:  "Allele differences in the sRNA arcZ gene result in variant prokaryotic and eukaryotic antimicrobial activities of Dickeya solani against bacteria, yeast and fungi."

Time:  14.10.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker:  dr Tomasz Turowski, IBB PAN, Warszawa

Talk:  "Modelling of SARS-CoV-2 infection as a tool to reveal new viral mechanisms"

Time:  10.06.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker:  dr Jorge Bernardino De La Serna, Faculty of Medicine, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London

Talk:  "Functional Lipid liquid-liquid immiscibility at immune interfacial barriers"

Time:  27.05.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker:  prof. Susanne Gabrielsson, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Medicine Clinical Allergy Research Unit, Solna, Sweden

Talk:  "Immune modulatory extracellular vesicles: applications as biomarkers and for clinical treatment"

Time:  06.05.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker: Sergey Samsonov

Talk:  "Modeling protein-glycosaminoglycan interactions in biologically relevant systems"

Time:  08.04.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Online and Live in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d

Speaker:  Elvin Flamingo and Xavier Bailly

Talk:  "Symsagittifera roscoffensis as a main Actor* of The Plant~Animals ~ Symbiosity of Creation"

Time:  11.03.2022, 9:00 am

Venue:  Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d

Speaker:  dr Wojciech Siwek, Harvard Medical School, USA, ICCVS, University of Gdańsk

Talk:  "Transcriptional memory of interferon gamma target genes"

Time:  25.02.2022, 2:00 pm

Venue:  Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.  

Speaker:  dr Daniel Puleston, Johns Hopkins University - US

Talk:  "Metabolic control of helper T cell lineage selection"

Time:  03/12/2021, 2:00 pm

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker:  prof. Alessio Mengoni,  University of Florence, Italy

Talc:  "Legume tasters: The panoply of symbiotic rhizobia host preference"

Time:  17/12/2021, 9:00 am

Venue:  Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker: Dr Sebastian Lewandowski

Talk: "On Brains and Vessels: How perivascular fibroblasts contribute to ALS neurodegeneration"

Time: 15.10.2021, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker: dr Maja Firczuk

Talk: "Academic basic research vs. big pharma R&D- similarities and differences based on my career transition from postdoc to early drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline" 

Time: 7 may 2021, 9:00 am.

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.  

I have completed all my higher education at MWB in Gdansk. I have gained an extensive expertise in biochemistry during my PhD on Hsp70 protein systems, in the group of prof. Marszalek. In 2007 I have started postdoctoral research in systems biology of eukaryotic mRNA translation pathway, first at University on Manchester then at Warwick University. In 2018 I decided to have a career change and moved to work as a biochemist in early drug discovery at GSK.

In my talk I want to share learnings form my career journey and give you an overview of drug discovery process.

Speaker: Dr Sachin Kote

Talk: "Neoantigen discovery & proteomics development at International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science"

Time: 11.06.2021, 9:00 am

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MsTeams. Group password: ypidr3d.

I am acting team leader of the chemical biology group at the International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science (ICCVS). I am currently leading the neoantigen discovery/immunopeptidomics projects and proteomics development at ICCVS, University of Gdansk, Poland (www.iccvs.ug.edu.pl) since 2018.

I have specialized in peptidomics, proteomics, and cancer vaccine science. I have been working in the field of proteomics concerning health, environment, and safety for the past 12 years. I started my research career as a research project assistant in the proteomics laboratory at the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), India. Herein, I have developed a strong interest in proteomics, mass spectrometry (MS), and biomarker discovery. Afterward, I moved to Italy for doctoral studies focusing on invitro and invivo nano-bio-interactions, biomarker findings upon nano-exposure, and nanotoxicology using advanced proteomics tools. I have completed my doctoral studies with an excellent Ph.D. award from the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. Later on, I moved to north Italy for my first postdoctoral studies at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genova, Italy. During my tenure, I developed biological/protein nanoparticles for the safe delivery of nanomedicine applications. In the second but very challenging project, I have developed a dissolution test for risk assessment nanomaterials. I am proud to say that our development of dissolution test is included in the nano-regulatory guidelines i.e., The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, ENV/JM/MONO, 2020, 9) guidelines. These guidelines are applicable in 36 industrialized countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific.

Additionally, I have a background in Bioinformatics, Clinical Research & Clinical Data Management (CRCDM), and Diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology (DMLT).

Speaker: prof. Neelika Malavige (Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka)

Talk: „Immunopathogensis of dengue; lessons for COVID-19?”

Time: 12 March 2021, 9:00 am

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.

Neelika Malavige is a Professor and Head of the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine at University of Sri Jayewardenepura, a Director of Centre for Dengue Research and an academic visitor at the MRC Human Immunology Unit, University of Oxford. She is also a member of Executive Committee of the International Society of Infectious Diseases.   

Neelika has obtained medical training and qualifications through University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Royal College of Physicians, UK and European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology. She did her PhD at the University of Oxford, investigating immune responses to Varicella Zoster virus, having received a Commonwealth Scholarship. She is currently both a scientist and a practising clinician with interest in infectious diseases and allergies. Neelika has obtained research funding of around $ 2 mln and with that support she set up and developed the Centre for Dengue Research at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. 

Neelika’s current research interest involve immune responses to Dengue virus and biomarker identification; she is also running clinical trials to reduce vascular leak in severe disease. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Neelika and her team have been also investigating humoral and cellular responses to SARS-CoV2 and sequencing the viral strains.

She has published extensively on Dengue, VZV and now also on COVID-19 in prestigious journals, including Nature Communications, Scientific Reports and PLoS NeglectedTropical Diseases. She has been awarded countless excellence research awards and multiple awards for quality in research supervision. She has been involved in science popularisation, has been proclaimed a “role model” for Women in STEM and has recently won the title of “The most inspiring woman of the year” in Sri Lanka.

Speaker: Dr Adam Ritchie (Jenner Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford)

Talk: Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine - questions and answers session

Time: 29 January 2021, 9:00 am

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.

Dr Ritchie completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Microbiology and Immunology (2001) and PhD in Immunology (2005), both at the University of New South Wales in Australia. His doctoral research involved investigation of modulation of immune responses by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. After his PhD, he moved to the University of Oxford, working as a postdoctoral researcher in infection risk of blood products, which focused on malaria and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Then, he followed with a post-doctoral research position in HIV/AIDS immunology at the Weatherall Institute for Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford as part of the Centre for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) consortium (2008-2012). During the time he coordinated the CHAVI002 study into individuals resistant to HIV infection in cohorts in the UK and Uganda.

From 2011 to 2017 Dr Ritchie was the Lecturer in Science and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, a new department at Oxford that he helped establish. Here he taught public policy students and policy makers how to work with scientific evidence, including preparing for and responding to pandemics.

Currently, he is working at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford as a Senior Project Manager in Vaccine Development and is part of the Oxford COVID Vaccine Trial Group. Initially working on Rabies vaccine from 2017, he set up and manages phase I clinical trials for this vaccine in the UK and Tanzania. In 2020 his role changed due to the pandemic; he was instrumental in developing and delivering the manufacturing process for the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine. This included setting up the Manufacturing consortium now producing the vaccine under licence with AstraZeneca, obtaining a UK government commitment of £65 million support for manufacturing, and managing £15 million of that budget.

Dr Ritchie is also actively involved in multiple non-research roles at Oxford, including as the Senior Admissions Adviser for Blavatnik School of Government, and as a Lecturer in Human Science at St Catherine’s College. He holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education at the University of Oxford and the Higher Education Academy (2013). He is a Senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and received the St Bonaventure University Medal of Honor (2012) and University of Oxford Teaching Excellence Award (2013) for his contributions to education.

Dr Ritchie has co-authored work published by Journal of Virology, Vaccine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Retrovirology, Infection and Immunity, etc. His most recent work focusing on the COVID19 vaccine resulted in multiple papers published in The Lancet and Nature Medicine.

Speaker: dr Adam Kłosin (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany)

Talk: Regulation of gene expression through biomolecular condensation

Time: 06 November 2020, 9:00 am

Venue: Online in the "IFB seminars" group of MS Teams. Group password: ypidr3d.

Adam Kłosin is a postdoctoral researcher and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. In 2016 he completed his PhD in the group of Ben Lehner at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona where he studied mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance in Caenorhabditis elegans. He then moved to Dresden to train in the arts of biological phase separation in the group of Tony Hyman. In his research he applies biophysical methods to understand various aspects of gene regulation such as transcriptional initiation and control of protein expression variability. His most recent work demonstrates a very effective mechanism for noise reduction in mammalian cells based on compartmentalisation of a protein via liquid- liquid phase separation. He is currently investigating the role of disordered protein domains in regulating interactions with the DNA in the context of transcriptional initiation.

Speaker: dr Marta Hoffman-Sommer (Interdyscyplinarne Centrum Modelowania Matematycznego i Komputerowego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Platforma Otwartej Nauki)

Talk: Otwarty dostęp do publikacji i danych naukowych

Time: 21 April 2017, 9.15am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Po wykładzie dyskusja panelowa z udziałem zaproszonych gości. Planowany czas trwania (9.15-11.00).

http://biotech.ug.edu.pl/media/aktualnosci/65077/otwarta_nauka_szanse_-_wyzwania_-_kierunki

Marta Hoffman-Sommer jest absolwentką Międzywydziałowych Indywidualnych Studiów Matematyczno-Przyrodniczych na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim. Stopień doktora nauk biochemicznych (2007) uzyskała w Instytucie Biochemii i Biofizyki PAN w Warszawie na podstawie badań nad transportem wewnątrzkomórkowym u drożdży. Staż podoktorski odbyła na Uniwersytecie Humboldtów w Berlinie (2010-2012) w dziedzinie modelowania matematycznego w biologii. Od roku 2012 pracuje w Interdyscyplinarnym Centrum Modelowania Matematycznego i Komputerowego Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, gdzie w ramach Platformy Otwartej Nauki zajmuje się kwestiami dotyczącymi otwartej nauki, otwartych danych badawczych i zarządzania danymi, koordynuje ogólnopolskie Repozytorium Otwartych Danych RepOD i reprezentuje Krajowe Biuro Otwartego Dostępu projektu OpenAIRE.

Speaker: dr Michał Mińczuk (MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit, University of Cambridge)

Talk: Genome editing in mitochondria: past, present and future

Time: 06 March 2020, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Mitochondria are essential for human life. They are complex, compartmentalised organelles that form a dynamic network throughout the cell, host crucial metabolic processes vital for energy provision, and are central to cell fate decisions. Mitochondria contain multiple copies of their own genome, the mtDNA, that encodes the core subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation system. Mutations in protein or RNA coding genes of mtDNA are the most frequent cause of mitochondrial disease. These disorders are currently incurable and effectively untreatable, with heterogeneous penetrance, presentation and prognosis. In most cases, mutant and wild-type mtDNAs coexist within a single cell, resulting in heteroplasmy. The selective elimination of mutant mtDNA, and consequent enrichment of wild-type mtDNA, can rescue pathological phenotypes in heteroplasmic cells. In our work, we have developed mitochondrially targeted zinc finger-nucleases (mtZFNs) for degradation of mutant mtDNA through site-specific DNA cleavage. We have successfully used mtZFNs to target and cleave mtDNA harbouring disease-associated point mutations or large-scale deletions in vitro. More recently, we exploited a unique mouse model that recapitulates common molecular features of heteroplasmic mtDNA disease in cardiac tissue: the m.5024C>T tRNAAla mouse. Through application of mtZFN delivered systemically by adeno-associated virus (AAV), we induced specific elimination of mutant mtDNA across the heart, coupled to a reversion of molecular and biochemical phenotypes. These recent findings constitute proof of principle that mtDNA heteroplasmy correction using programmable nucleases could provide a therapeutic route for heteroplasmic mitochondrial diseases of diverse genetic origin.

WebPage

Speaker: dr Marcin Dembek (Institute for Cell and Molecular Biosciences, Newcastle University, UK)

Talk: Forward genetic studies of gene essentiality and sporulation in Clostridium difficile

Time: 24 March 2017, 9am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Marcin Dembek obtained his master’s degree in 2009 at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG-MUG while studying the potential application of B. subtilis spores as an antigen delivery platform for use in the development of an oral vaccine against Helicobacter pylori. He went on to secure a Wellcome Trust PhD scholarship at Imperial College London to develop genome-wide approaches to studying sporulation and germination in Clostridium difficile. In 2013, he took up a post-doctoral position at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford to work on the development of novel vaccine candidates against malaria before being offered a research associate position in Dr. Paula Salgado’s lab at Newcastle University where he studies the structure and function of potential drug targets in C. difficile. His current work is primarily aimed at understanding the organisation of the ‘molecular machinery’ involved in the engulfment stage of sporulation.

Dr Dembek is a member of the Microbiology Society and an active part of the Polish scientific community in the UK. In 2014, he co-founded Getty Science, an online publication platform aimed at researcher who wish to share their work through creative writing and illustration, as part of a close collaboration with the annual ‘Science. Polish Perspectives’ meeting.

Speaker: prof. dr Ben Berkhout (Laboratory of Experimental Virology, Amsterdam UMC)

Talk: Towards a HIV cure: in which cells is the virus hiding and how to inactivate integrated HIV genomes

Time: 03 April 2020, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

We can successfully treat HIV-infected individuals with multiple antiviral drugs, but we cannot cure them as the virus hides in certain cells from which it rebounds after therapy is stopped. A better description of this cellular reservoir has been the Holy Grail of HIV cure research for many years. We could confirm that HIV DNA is quite profoundly enriched in a very small subset of T cells that express the CD32a marker. This is surprising as CD32a is abundantly expressed and functional as Fcgamma receptor on e.g. B cells, but there is a very small T cell subset that also express this surface marker. Thus, cure approaches should be directed towards these CD32a-positive T cells. We developed the CRISPR-Cas technology for a direct attack on the integrated HIV DNA genome. The underlying mechanism of HIV inactivation will be discussed. We propose to develop CD32a-targeting lentiviral vectors that encode these optimized CRISPR-Cas reagents.

Speaker: dr Michał Szymański

Talk: Structural basis of DNA replication and repair in human mitochondria

Time: 13 January 2017, 10am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Michal Roman Szymanski is a Research Scientist in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences from the University of Houston in 2007 working on structural and functional characterization of HMW1B, a membrane protein from Haemophilus influenzae. In 2011, he received his PhD degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas for the work on “Helicase initiated assembly of macromolecular machines involved in DNA replication and repair”. In 2012-13, as a Jeane B. Kempner Postdoctoral Fellow, he studied the assembly of E.coli primosome with Professor Wlodek M. Bujalowski. In 2013 he moved to the Pharmacology Department at UTMB to study the structural basis for human mitochondrial DNA replication and antiviral drug toxicity.

Speaker: dr Katarzyna Piwosz (Centre Algatech, Institute of Microbiology, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Trebon)

Talk: How photoheterotrophic bacteria can challenge our understanding of carbon cycle

Time: 28 February 2020, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

My main scientific interest is on ecology of aquatic microorganisms. Aquatic microorganisms: bacteria, algae and heterotrophic protists, are the key players in energy transfer and element cycling in freshwater and marine habitats. These processes are vital for sustaining aquatic ecosystem and the entire biosphere. My research includes investigation of diversity, distribution, dynamics and activity of bacteria, algae and heterotrophic protists in their natural environments. I graduated from the University of Gdansk in Poland. I did my first scientific project for my master thesis at the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. I studied diversity and distribution of algae dwelling in the Arctic Ocean. During hours spent counting different algal species under a microscope, I noticed a plethora of tiny, tiny cells that neither my supervisor, nor any other ecologists could name. This is how I became fascinated with the smallest of microorganisms, for which high quality light microscopy was not enough. Looking for the possibility to identify those cells, I read about use of molecular methods to study microbial diversity. However, to learn these techniques, I had to move to Germany, where I joined Max Planck Research School at Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen (Marmic). Studying at Marmic and working on my second master thesis at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, I learned all the theory and practice I needed to pursue my doctoral study. I returned to the Institute of Oceanology PAS, and, in cooperation with the University of Zurich, I studied small algae and protists in the Baltic Sea. The phylogenetic diversity of algae and protists in the Baltic Sea turned out to be incredible, with thousands of species present in the Gulf of Gdańsk over a year. I discovered groups of protists that no one expected to be present in the Baltic. After I accomplished my PhD, I returned to Polar Regions to answer the question from my first master project: who were the tiny tiny cells in my samples :)

During my work, I participated in scientific cruises to the Baltic Sea, Arctic Ocean and Adriatic Sea. I successfully managed five international scientific projects. I was awarded fellowships and stipends from the EMBL, FEMS, the Director of the Institute of Baltic Sea Research, Warnemünde, Swiss Foundation for Hydrobiology & Limnology, and the University of Zurich, and received four awards from the Director of National Marine Fisheries Research Institute for the publications record. I have been appointed the Ambassador for Poland by the International Society for Microbial Ecology (https://www.isme-microbes.org/). Presently I am a researcher in Institute of Microbiology of Czech Academy of Sciences. My work concentrates on role of photoheterotrophic bacteria in freshwater carbon cycle. There are two known types of photoheterotrophic bacteria: rhodopsin containing and bacteriochlorophylls containing. The former seems to be abundant but slow growing, while the letter are more rare (but still they can make up to 40% of all bacterial abundance) but fast growing, and my current focus lies on them. In my talk, I will present my research on ecology of the bacteriochlorophylls containing photoheterotrophic bacteria in freshwaters: their diversity, seasonal dynamics, activity and interaction with other microbes.  

Website:        Centre Algatech                 About me               Our Team     

Speaker: prof. dr hab. Marta Miączyńska (Międzynarodowy Instytut Biologii Molekularnej i Komórkowej w Warszawie)

Talk: Inflammatory signalling from the endocytic pathway

Time: 20 January 2017

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Absolwentka Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (kierunek biologia molekularna, 1992), uzyskała stopień doktora w dziedzinie genetyki na Uniwersytecie Wiedeńskim w 1997 roku. Odbyła staże podoktorskie w Europejskim Laboratorium Biologii Molekularnej w Heidelbergu (1998-2000) oraz w Instytucie Maxa Plancka Molekularnej Biologii Komórki i Genetyki w Dreźnie (2001-2004). Od roku 2005 kierownik Laboratorium Biologii Komórki w Międzynarodowym Instytucie Biologii Molekularnej i Komórkowej w Warszawie. Stopień doktora habilitowanego uzyskała w roku 2008, a tytuł profesora w 2013.

Jej badania z dziedziny biologii komórki dotyczą mechanizmów molekularnych, które integrują transport błonowy, w szczególności endocytozę, z wewnątrzkomórkowymi szlakami sygnalizacyjnymi. Odkryła m. in. odrębną populację wczesnych endosomów w komórce, tzw. endosomy APPL. Wraz ze swoim zespołem scharakteryzowała nowe funkcje białek endocytarnych w regulacji przekazywania sygnałów oraz transkrypcji, a także rolę endosomów jako platform sygnałowych dla receptorów czynników wzrostu i cytokin.

Współautorka ponad 40 publikacji cytowanych ponad 2100 razy. Wygłosiła kilkadziesiąt referatów i wykładów na zaproszenie na międzynarodowych konferencjach oraz w zagranicznych instytucjach naukowych. Laureatka stypendiów Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Human Frontier Science Program Organization (HFSPO) oraz L’Oreal Polska dla Kobiet i Nauki. Laureatka prestiżowych grantów zagranicznych: Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellowship (2006-2012) oraz Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar (2006-2010). Kierowniczka grantów finansowanych przez Polsko-Szwajcarski Program Badawczy, Narodowe Centrum Nauki (grant MAESTRO), Unię Europejską, Towarzystwo Maxa Plancka i Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego. Panelistka m. in. European Research Council (LS3 starting grants), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) z Francji, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) z Niemiec. Członek Komitetu Biologii Molekularnej Komórki PAN. Promotorka 7 zakończonych przewodów doktorskich.

Speaker: prof. Paweł Pohl (Wrocław University of Science and Technology)

Talk: Cold atmospheric pressure plasma – new challenges, new hopes

Time: 13 March 2020, 09:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Speaker: dr hab. Mieczyslaw (Mietek) Mazurek

Talk: Culture of Innovation; Practitioner’s Perspective

Time: 13 January 2017, 9.00 a.m.

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Culture of Innovation; Practitioner’s Perspective - What is true in science: “publish or perish”, in the market place translates into: “innovate or die”. Innovation is one of the key tools necessary to win in the competitive economies; innovation not only in technology, but also in processes and business models. This seminar will combine some examples and general remarks from literature regarding the subject matter with examples and observations of a researcher immersed in the creative environment of one of the most innovative global enterprises – 3M Company. A need for “systems thinking” in designing and implementing truly innovative solutions will be emphasized.

Speaker: dr hab. Roman Szczęsny (IBB PAN)

Talk: RNA decay and surveillance in human mitochondria

Time: 06 December 2019, 09:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Mitochondria are organelles present in most eukaryotic cells that play a vital role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. The function of these organelles depends on the crosstalk between two genomes: nuclear and mitochondrial. Most of the proteins present in mitochondria are encoded in the nuclear genome and are imported into mitochondria upon synthesis in the cytoplasm. Nevertheless, 13 proteins encoded within the mitochondrial genome are essential for human as they are key components of the respiratory complexes. Since human mitochondria seem to have limited possibilities to regulate gene expression by altering the transcription initiation rate, posttranscriptional processes, including RNA degradation, are of great importance for proper mitochondrial and cellular homeostasis. The machinery responsible for mitochondrial RNA decay in humans had remained unknown for many years. We have contributed significantly to the identification and description of the RNA-degradation pathways in human mitochondria. This process, its actors, as well as the consequences of its dysfunction on cellular homeostasis, will be presented.

Speaker: dr Marielle Afanassieff (Inserm, Universit Paris)

Talk: Rabbit Pluripotent Stem Cells: Interest and State of Art.

Time: 28 October 2016, 9.00 a.m.

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Speaker: Gina Czarnecki

Talk: Contagion, 15 years on

Time: 29 November 2019, 09:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Gina Czarneckis’ multi-disciplinary arts practice involves the creation media installation video, sculpture, participatory and site specific works that sit at the intersection of art, design, technology and science. Born in Immingham 1965, Gina studied Fine Art at Grimsby School of Art and went on to her BA Hons course at Wimbledon School of Art 1984-7. She started her professional career making animated film and video in the 1980s whilst studying painting. After graduating she developed this into combining live action and drawing whilst working at the London Film-Makers Co-op, running the workshop until 1991. Her postgraduate in Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee, Scotalnd, (91-2) took her work in film and video through to 3D and computer environments. From 2009 her work developed into participatory sculptures, using biomedical materials and processes, worked on community projects that have helped to shape and transform new hospitals and worked to develop new systems for science engagement and bio-art (Heirloom 2016) and more recently working on the intersection of product design, engineering and business with her project/product ‘Koffin’and ‘Who we are Now”. 2018. Ginas work has been exhibited internationally at venues including Brisbane International Arts Festival, Ars Electronica, Linz, Lumiere, UK, Sundance Film Festival & retrospective & monograph exhibitions include ‘Humancraft ‘ moving image Centre, New Zealand, (2005) and the Bluecoat, Liverpool (2010) She was awarded a Creative Scotland Award (2002) Fleck Fellowship Banff (2004) Best Australian/New Zealand Dance Film (2005) and numerous other prizes. Her work is in both public and private collections.

Speaker: Prof. Robin Fahraeus (Inserm, Universit Paris)

Talk: Linking viral immune evasion with cell proliferation - Epstein-Barr virus encoded EBNA1

Time: 7 October 2016

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Prof. Robin Fahraeus is Director of Research at the French Inserm. His team is located at the Institute Genetique Moleculair in Paris. He is member of the French Cancer Institute, the Mazaryk Cancer Institute in Brno, Czech Republic and Umea University, Sweden. He did his M.D. and PhD at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in 1993. This was followed by a post doc training with Sir David Lane in Dundee, UK. He was Head of R&D at the Cyclacel Biotech Ltd before setting up his own academic research group with support from the Cancer Research UK. In 2004 he moved to France to become Research Director and work on physiological implications of mRNA translation in the p53 and the MHC class I pathways.  The team has explored viral mechanisms of immune evasion and how this is linked to alternative sources of peptides for the MHC class I pathway.  Works on the activation of p53 have shown how signaling pathways use the p53 mRNA to differentiate p53 activity following different cellular stresses. Dr Fahraeus team is currently world leading group in the studies on the source of MHC class I presented peptides. Their work contributed to understanding fundamental aspects of the processes allowing the immune system to detect self from non-self and for viral evasion of the immune system. The aim of their present research is to identify and evaluate intracellular targets for novel anti-cancer therapies. Dr Fahraeus is the author of over 80 publications in leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Nature Communications, PNAS, Oncogene and others. 

Speaker: Dr Francisco Javier Castro-Toledo (Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche / UMH · CRIMINA. Center for the Study and Prevention of Crime)

Talk: Research ethics: from dilemmas to solutions in scientific practice

Time: 21st February 2020, 09:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Dr. Francisco Javier Castro-Toledo holds a degree in Philosophy, a master's degree in moral philosophy and holds a PhD from Miguel Hernández University in Elche. He completed his doctorate in July 2018 with the defense of a doctoral thesis funded by the Spanish Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) which was qualified with “cum laude”. Since 2013 he has participated as a researcher, teacher and manager of European R&D projects at the CRÍMINA center for the study and prevention of crime at the UMH under the supervision of Professor Dr. Fernando Miró Llinares, and since 2018 he has been assistant professor in the Department of Legal Science at the Miguel Hernández University in Elche and co-founder CEO of Plus Ethics: a spin-off of the UMH and CRIMINA dedicated to providing ethical and legal support for both public policies and R&D projects.

Speaker: Prof. dr hab. Zofii Szweykowska-Kulińska (Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza Poznań)

Talk: Składanie pre-mRNA - molekularna gra w Scrabble

Time: 5 October 2016, 12:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, Aula

Category: Invited Lecture, Inauguration of the academic year

Serdecznie zapraszamy na wykład Prof. dr hab. Zofii Szweykowskiej-Kulińskiej z Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu "Składanie pre-mRNA – molekularna gra w Scrabble". Wykład uhonoruje tegoroczną inaugurację roku akademickiego, która odbędzie 5 pażdziernika o 12⁰⁰ w Auli na MWB, Instytut Biotechnologii Abrahama 58.

Tytuł magistra: 1980 biologii, UAM    Stopień doktora nauk biologicznych: 1986, UAM    Stopień doktora habilitowanego nauk biologicznych: 1995, UAM     Tytuł profesora nauk biologicznych: 2001, UAM

Postdok: stypendium Aleksandra von Humboldta: 1988-1990, Uniwersytet w Wuerzburgu, Niemcy Stypendium EMBO, 1993, CNRS, Gif-sur Yvette, Francja
Kierownik Zakładu Ekspresji Genów (od 1996) Dyrektor Instytutu Biologii Molekularnej i Biotechnologii (od 2000) na Wydziale Biologii UAM Blisko 70 prac widocznych w WoS

Tematyka: Badania dotyczą metabolizmu RNA, obecnie koncentrują się nad splicingiem i biogenezą i funkcjami mikroRNA roślin. Najważniejsze odkrycia: (1) odkryła wraz ze współpracownikami, że geny mikroRNA są długie i zawierają introny. (2) Intron lub aktywne miejsce 5’ splicingowe stymuluje biogenezę roślinnych mikroRNA obecnych w egzonie powyżej intronu, natomiast w przypadku intronowych mikroRNA jest odwrotnie: wydajny splicing i aktywne miejsce 5’ splicingowe hamują biogenezę mikroRNA . (3) Wyciszenie z pomocą sztucznego mikroRNA genu CBP80 ziemniaka zwiększa tolerancję rośliny na okresowy niedobór wody. (4) Zahamowanie krzewienia jęczmienia w stresie wysokiej temperatury jest związane z indukcją mikroRNA 444. (5) W wątrobowcu P.endiviifolia odkryto obecność kilku mikroRNA podobnych do mikroRNA glonów. Fakt ten wskazuje, że rośliny te lokują się u korzenia drzewa filogenetycznego roślin lądowych.

Speaker: Zhi Jane Chen, Associate Professor (Tenure Track) of immunology in Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland.

Talk: The essential role of Th17/Treg cells in inflammation

Time: 25th October 2019, 09:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

She graduated from Beijing Medical University (current name: Peking University Health Science Center). She carried out her Ph.D study at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku, Finland. During 2005-2007, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)/NIH, USA. In 2008-2010, she received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Academy of Finland and worked in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku. In 2012, she was awarded as an Academy of Finland research fellow, became a principle investigator and group leader working at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology, University of Turku. In 2014, she earned Docentship in Immunology from Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku and started independently supervising Ph.D students.  In 2018, she joined the International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science (ICCVS), University of Gdansk as a group leader. At the end of 2018, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in University of Oulu, Finland.  Her research focuses on understanding the role of Th17 and Treg cells in regulating the inflammatory/autoimmune and tumorigenesis. Her group studies Th17 and iTreg differentiation at multiple levels from mouse to human and integrate the results to build a comprehensive view of the processes.

Speaker: Prof. Minna Pirhonen (University of Helsinki)

Talk: Soft rot bacteria and their interaction with potato

Time: 12th April 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Minna Pirhonen is an Associate Professor and University Lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland and a supervisor for Doctoral Programmes in Microbiology and Biotechnology and Plant Sciences at University of Helsinki.  Minna’s main research interest are connected to phytopathology, plant physiology, genetics and molecular microbiology.  She is an author and coauthor of more than fifty research and review publications targeting different aspects of interaction of plant pathogenic and plant associated bacteria with their plant hosts as well as isolation and characterization of soft rot bacteria.

Associate Professor Pirhonen was one of the first scientists (1993) to discover and describe that plant pathogenic bacteria communicate with each other in environment (the mechanism broadly known now as quorum sensing) and that they can globally coordinate their populational response during infection of the host. This fundamental work was a basis to understand that bacteria can be perceived as semi-multicellular organisms living under natural conditions in consortia and “talking to each other all the time”.

Speaker: Krzysztof Pyrć, PhD, DSc, JU professor (Laboratory of Virology, Jagiellonian University)
http://virogenetics.info/

Talk: Entry of human coronaviruses

Time: 25th January 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

The virus entry is one of the key points of the infection, and cell/tissue susceptibility to a large extent determines the nature and severity of the disease. Using a variety of techniques we have mapped the route of entry for several coronaviruses, including human coronavirus NL63 and human coronavirus OC43. Available data on coronavirus’ entry originate frequently from studies employing immortalized cell lines or undifferentiated cells. Here, using the most advanced 3D tissue culture system mimicking the epithelium of conductive airways, we systematically mapped entry of viruses into susceptible cell. Considering low specificity of chemical inhibitors targeting different endocytic pathways, we decided to track the fate of a single virus particle in the cell with confocal microscopy. Obtained results were validated with developed 3D image analysis algorithms and subsequent statistical assessment.

Our results show that HCoV-NL63 virions require endocytosis for successful entry, and interaction between the virus and the receptor molecule triggers recruitment of clathrin. Subsequent vesicle scission by dynamin results in virus internalization, and the newly formed vesicle passes the actin cortex, what requires cytoskeleton rearrangement. Finally, acidification of the endosomal microenvironment is required for successful fusion and release of viral genome into the cytoplasm. On the other hand, HCoV‑OC43 employed a very different route, using caveolin-1-dependent pathway to enter the cell. Surprisingly, the virus was also internalized by macropinocytosis, but this route of internalization did not allow for virus entry and subsequent replication. HCoV‑OC43 trafficking in the cell seems to be carried out along actin filaments. We believe that usage of 3D tissue culture models and an appropriate methodology allowed us to obtain reliable, relevant biological results.

Speaker: Marcin Okrój, PhD

Talk: Role of the complement system in cancer progression and therapy.

Time: 26 February 2016, 9.00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Category: Faculty seminar

Marcin Okrój obtained his master degree at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG-AMG (Gdańsk, Poland) in 1999, then continued his scientific career at the same place as a PhD student under the supervision of prof. Jacek Bigda. He participated in two projects granted by Polish State Commitee for Scientific Research (KBN), which involved the role of cell adhesion as well as antiangiogenic compound TNP-470 in growth of rodent melanomas. Irrespectively of the main scientific activity, he was also involved in several side-projects concerning antimicrobial peptides. In 2003, as a beneficient of Marie-Curie Program, he obtained 6-month training at the Free University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and finally defended his PhD thesis in 2004.

After working for 1 year at Pasteur Institute (Paris, France), Dr Okrój joined the team of prof. Anna Blom at Lund University (Malmö, Sweden), which was engaged into innate immunity and especially the complement system. In 2010 he obtained support from Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) and initiated an independent line of research focused on the role of complement in tumor progression, identification of novel complement inhibitors and design of new immunological methods.

Currently Dr Okrój is a principal investigator within two projects funded by National Science Centre (NCN, Poland): i) ¨Role of the complement system in tumorigenesis and therapeutic approaches.¨ (Sonata Bis) and ii) ¨Functional characteristics and therapeutic potential of gain-of-function mutations in complement C2 protein.¨ (Harmonia). He is the author of 30 peer-reviewed publications and named as inventor in one patent. Dr Okrój is a member of International Complement Society, European Complement Network and research program Biomarkers in Cancer Medicine (BioCare).

Speaker: Adam Jagiełło Rusiłowski (University of Gdańsk, Poland)

Workshop: Principles of intercultural cooperation for research teams

Time: Thursday, 2^nd July 2015, 11:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Adam Jagiełło Rusiłowski, biographical note

Adam Jagiello-Rusilowski – is an educator and social entrepreneur. He holds MA in English Literature and PhD in Educational Psychology from University of Gdansk. He studied Drama in Education at University of Northern Iowa, Community Leadership at Picker Centre, Columbia University and Social Economics at INSEAD Business School (Fontainableau).  He ran 3 youth NGOs, was Ford and Ashoka’s  fellow, worked as an expert for Soros Foundations in Eastern Europe, European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam and UNWRA in Gaza Strip.  His original idea of self-sustainable system of training young actors as youth workers using drama to promote social and civic competences among the socially excluded (working class) children was scaled through various programs in South Eastern Europe, Russia, Peru, Uzbekistan and Palestine (Gaza Strip).

Currently he works as Dean of Development and  International Programs at Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Gdansk. As a researcher he is interested in Lisbon Key Competences in Education in particular looking at activities promoting pro-social and entrepreneurial (innovation) attitudes in young Europeans and Arabs.

Speaker: prof. Vladimir Korzh, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland

Talk: α-subunits of voltage-gated channels in vertebrates development and disease

Time: 20th September 2019, 14:00 pm

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Kcnb1-containing voltage-gated potassium channels consist of two types of α-subunits: (i) electrically active Kcnb1 subunits and (ii) silent or modulatory α-subunits. Voltage-gated potassium channels are viewed as regulators of electrical activity of the plasma membrane in excitable cells, a role that is performed by transmembrane protein domains of α-subunits. Genetic studies revealed a role for this region in human neurodevelopmental disorders, such as epileptic encephalopathy. The N- and C-terminals of α-subunits interact to form the cytoplasmic subunit of heterotetrameric potassium channels that regulate their activity. Subsequent animal studies revealed the developmental functions of Kcnb1-containing voltage-gated potassium channels, illustrating their role during brain development and reproduction. The functions of potassium channels will be discussed in the context of regulatory interactions between electrically active and regulatory α-subunits during zebrafish development.

Speaker: dr Sivakumar Vadivel Gnanasundram (French Institute of Health and Medical Research)

Time: 16th November 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Dr. Gnanasundram finished his Master’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Madras, India in 2008. He then moved to Indian Institute of Science, India as a Research fellow and worked on novel anti-viral therapeutics using small RNAs targeting Hepatitis C virus RNA translation. For his doctoral degree he enrolled into HBIGS, Heidelberg University, Germany where he worked on Ribosome biogenesis pathway and RNA helicases. He completed his doctoral degree in 2014.  For his post-doctoral work he moved to Dr. Robin Fåhraeus group at INSERM, Paris, France.

His present work involves in understanding the oncogenic mechanisms of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-encoded EBNA1. It has been known for over 50 years that EBV is a human oncogenic virus responsible for app. 2-3% of all cancers but unlike other oncogenic viruses, the underlying molecular oncogenic mechanisms of EBV have largely remained obscure. Transgenic mice models have shown a reverse correlation between the expression of the EBNA1 protein and a lymphoma phenotype. Why less of an oncogenic protein would give more cancer could not be explained until now. It turns out that EBNA1 suppresses its own synthesis in cis in order to minimize the production of antigenic peptides for the MHC class I pathway and thereby helps the virus to evade the immune system. His work that is recently published in Nature Communications shows that the stress caused by this suppression of translation leads to the activation of E2F1 and the induction of c-myc. We speculate that the virus is exploiting a cellular pathway whereby cells senses dysfunctional mRNA translation and compensates by inducing ribosomal biogenesis via c-myc.

Speaker: Florian Hollfelder (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

Talk: Rules and Tools for Efficient Enzyme Evolution, Recruitment and Discovery

Time: Wednesday, 1^st July 2015, 09:00

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Florian Hollfelder, biographical note

Florian Hollfelder was educated at the Technical University of Berlin (Diplom-Chemiker) and Cambridge University (MPhil). After a formative stay at Stanford (with Dan Herschlag) on free-energy relationships in enzymes, he joined Tony Kirby’s group at the Chemistry Department of Cambridge University working on enzyme models and physical-organic chemistry. During his PhD he also collaborated with Dan Tawfik (on the mechanism and evaluation of model enzymes such as catalytic antibodies). His postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School (with Chris T. Walsh) was concerned with the biosynthesis and action of the natural antibiotic microcin B17. In 2001 he returned to Cambridge to start his own research group in the Biochemistry Department. The group’s research centers around quantitative and mechanistic questions at the chemistry/biology interface, involving low- and high-throughput approaches. Florian is Director of Studies and Graduate Mentor at Trinity Hall. He was coordinator of several EU-funded trans-national collaborative initiatives, e.g. the EU New and Emerging Science and Technology project MiFem on biological experiments in microdroplet reactors, and Marie-Curie networks on directed evolution of functional proteins (ENDIRPRO, ENEFP), on protein-protein interactions (ProSA) and on biological phosphates (PhosChemRec).

Speaker: dr Ryan O'Shaughnessy (University of London)

Talk: Discovering multiple roles for AKT1 in skin barrier function and skin disease

Time: 19th October 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Faculty of Chemistry, hall F8

Dr Ryan O'Shaughnessy is a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Cell Biology and Cutaneous Research. He leads a research programme focused on understanding molecular mechanisms of skin barrier function and through these insights, developing new therapies for diseases of skin barrier function, with particular emphasis on the ichthyoses, eczema and skin cancer.

Ryan completed his PhD in keratinocyte biology at Cancer Research UK, before postdoctoral training at Columbia University, NY and Queen Mary University of London. He started his skin barrier laboratory in 2008 at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and in 2012 was the Academic Lead of the Livingstone Skin Research Centre, a research centre dedicated to the study of childhood skin disease. He was awarded a Society of Investigative Dermatology Kligman fellowship in 2002 and the British Society of Investigative Dermatology Young Investigator Award in 2009.

Memberships include the European Society of Dermatological Research and the European Epidermal Barrier Research Network, and the UK Translational Research Network in Dermatology (UK TREND) and he is on the Editorial Board of Experimental Dermatology and on the Committee of the British Society of Investigative Dermatology. 

Speaker: Danuta Gutowska-Owsiak, PhD

Talk: Filaggrin utilize actins to regulate keratinocyte differentiation and cornification during epidermal barrier formation

Time: 22 January 2016, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Seminar

Speaker: Rafael Giraldo (Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas – CSIC, Madrid, Spain)

Talk: Synthetic Biology: News ways and tools to engineer biological systems

Time: Thursday, 2^nd July 2015, 10:00

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Rafael Giraldo, biographical note

Rafael got a Ph. D. Biol. Sci. in 1991 (Complutense U., Madrid) on the genetics and biochemistry of plasmid DNA replication initiation, under the supervision of R. Díaz-Orejas (CIB-CSIC). Then, he spent a postdoctoral (1992-94) in the group of D. Rhodes at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK), where he studied the role of the yeast Rap1 protein in packing telomeric dsDNA, which led to the crystal structure of the first telomeric nucleoprotein complex. Rafael also found that Rap1 promoted the assembly of parallel DNA quadruplexes by the G-rich strand of yeast telomeres, an early example of a protein chaperoning a DNA structure. Back to CIB-CSIC, first as a postdoctoral (1995-1999) and since then as staff scientist, his main focus was on how sequence-specific DNA binding elicits conformational changes in the winged-helix (WH) domains of plasmid-encoded bacterial replication (Rep) proteins. Besides this, he studied the assembly of yeast ORC initiator. In 2007, Rafael found the way to tailor WH domains to become DNA-modulated amyloidogenic devices, having recently developed synthetic prion-like modules recapitulating essential features of mammalian amyloid proteinopathies (e.g.: toxicity, modulation by chaperones of conformational strains), albeit confined to a bio-safe bacterial host. Since 2010, he is a CSIC Research Professor and a member of Academia Europaea. In 2015, he has been elected as Vice-President of the Spanish Society for Microbiology (SEM).

More info:       http://www.cib.csic.es/en/grupo.php?idgrupo=61

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rafael_Giraldo

Speaker: Dr Rafał Mostowy, Group Leader in Microbial Genomics, MCB UJ, Honorary Research Fellow, Imperial College London

Talk: Evolutionary and medical implications of the huge diversity of surface polysaccharides in the Enterobacteriales

Time: 14th June 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Dr Rafał Mostowy studied theoretical physics at the Jagiellonian University and the University of Copenhagen, after which he pursued doctoral studies in evolutionary biology at ETH Zurich. In 2012, he became a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London to study evolutionary dynamics of a major bacterial pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae. During this time, he developed interest and expertise in genetics of bacterial surface polysaccharides, both in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. In 2019, he moved from the University of Oxford to Jagiellonian University in Krakow to start his own lab. The newly founded Microbial Genomics group at the Malopolska Centre of Biotechnology uses bioinformatics, computer simulations and statistical methods to provide insight into emergence of antigenic diversity in bacteria, and the role of bacteriophages therein. This research helps us to understand and predict genetic changes in pathogenic bacteria and thus contribute to the co-creation of next-generation drugs.

Speaker: dr Paweł Leźnicki (University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom)

Talk: Protein deubiquitylation controls the degradation of mislocalised secretory and membrane proteins and regulates endoplasmic reticulum function

Time: 23th November 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Paweł Leźnicki graduated with an MSc in Biotechnology from the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Gdańsk and Medical University of Gdańsk, Poland, in 2006. He then moved to Manchester, United Kingdom, to work on the mechanisms of post-translational delivery of tail-anchored membrane proteins to the endoplasmic reticulum. He received his PhD degree in Biochemistry in 2010. At that point his research interests shifted towards studying protein degradation mediated by the ubiquitin-proteasome system. He investigated this process and the function of deubiquitylating enzymes initially at the University of Manchester (2011-2013) and then at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit, University of Dundee, United Kingdom, a world-renowned centre for ubiquitylation-oriented research. In 2017 he moved back to Manchester to continue his work on the role of deubiquitylating enzymes in the regulation of intracellular processes.

The ubiquitin-proteasome system is the predominant degradative route for the disposal of defective and/or unwanted proteins in eukaryotic cells. Polypeptides destined for the proteasome-mediated degradation are most often initially marked by covalent conjugation of a small polypeptide, ubiquitin. Ubiquitin can form polymers (ubiquitin chains or polyubiquitin) linked via lysine residues or the N-terminus of a ubiquitin monomer, and the residue used to build such chains defines the functional outcome of protein ubiquitylation. Importantly, ubiquitylation can be reversed by the action of a group of enzymes collectively known as deubiquitylating enzymes (DUBs). By studying the quality control of membrane and secretory proteins destined to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) we have identified several factors that control the steady-state levels of membrane and secretory proteins that fail to reach the ER. Such mislocalised proteins (MLPs) are routed towards degradation by the BAG6 complex but can be rescued by SGTA, a protein that stimulates MLP deubiquitylation. Further studies defined the molecular basis of these processes. Our subsequent work uncovered an isoform-specific function of a deubiquitylating enzyme, USP35, in apoptosis, lipid metabolism and ER stress. It also opened up new avenues for future work addressing the role of DUBs in controlling the function of intracellular organelles and pathways.

Speaker: Grzegorz Gacek (KAWA.SKA Sp. z o.o., Poland)

Talk: Advanced Laser Microdissection Systems

Time: Friday, 3^rd July 2015, 12:00

Workshop:  Stereoscope microscopy techniques

Time: Friday, 3^rd July 2015, 09:30 – 11:00 (gr. A) and 15:00 – 16:30 (gr. C)

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Grzegorz Gacek, biographical note

Biologist, widefield microscopy, TIRF microscopy, laser microdissection and stereomicroscopy specialist. Application specialist in KAWA.SKA Sp. z o.o. the distributor of Leica Microsystems in Poland.

Speaker: dr Anna Piskorz (University of  Cambridge)

Talk: Unlocking the clinical utility of genomic biomarkers in ovarian cancer

Time: 25th May 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

I’m a molecular biologist focus on translational research in high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). I work on identification of genomic biomarkers that could be applied in clinic as diagnostic, prognostic and predictive biomarkers, helping in better patient stratification, earlier disease diagnosis, monitoring patient response and improving patient management during the course of treatment. My research interests focus on development and implementation of new genomic technologies with potential application in clinic like shallow whole genome sequencing for copy number alterations detection and detection of mutant tumour DNA in body fluids. In my research I use variety of specimens like tumour tissue and body fluids (blood, plasma, ascites). I have a special interest in molecular characterization of ascites samples. I’m engaged in molecular analysis of samples from several clinical trials (ARIEL2, PISSARO, ICON7, ICON8, MADCaP, PHL-093 Toronto, OZM-061 Toronto) and collaborate with scientists from other research centres: University of Calgary (Canada), NKI (The Netherlands), VU University Medical Centre (The Netherlands), Institute of Cancer Sciences University of Glasgow (UK). I'm lead consultant for the molecular analysis of HGSOC samples in collaborations with the Ovarian Tumour Tissue Analysis (OTTA) and the Multidisciplinary Ovarian Cancer Outcomes Group (MOCOG) consortiums. One of my main aims is to transform HGSOC patients' care in Addenbrooks's hospital through the implementation of real time molecular profiling of every women with HGSOC by setting up workflow between CRUK CI, pathologists, tissue bank and Cancer Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory.

Speaker: Prof. Mikhail I. Zarayskiy (Clinical Laboratory, First Pavlov State Medical University of Saint Petersburg, Russia)

Talk: The modern concept of the DNA structure and regulation

Time: 23 October 2015, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Seminar

Mikhail I. Zarayskyi is professor of Clinical Laboratory at the First Pavlov State Medical University of Saint Petersburg in Russia. Hi is a group leader ‘Molecular Diagnostics in Oncology’. He graduated in medicine in 1984 at Saint-Petersburg Medical Institute of Hygiene and Sanitation. Then he obtained PhD degree for research on ‘The role of HLA markers in prognosis of multiple myeloma’ (1985) and ‘Molecular aspects of the main complications in hemopoietic stem cell transplantation’ (1995). His research interests focus primarily on molecular and genetic aspects of oncogenesis (telomerase activity, mutagenesis in the apoptotic genes (p53, p21, BCL-2), intracellular signaling (Jak, HOX, STAT), allogenic bone marrow transplantation, renal transplantation and micro-RNA control of tumor cells. He is currently a member of the European Dialysis and Transplant Association.

Speaker: Filip Dutka (Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland)

Talk: Growth of microorganisms in microfluidic devices

Time: Wednesday, 1^st July 2015, 10:00

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Filip Dutka, biographical note

My scientific field of interest is soft condensed matter and application of microfluidics in  the fields of microbiology and medicine. During my master and doctoral studies at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw (Poland) I was looking into mathematical description of the liquid-gas fluid interfaces on nanoscale and phenomena such as wetting and morphological phase transitions. I continued research on nanodroplet shapes on my Post Doc in the Max-Planc-Institute if Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart (Germany). Using methods of statistical physics I explained Gibbs’ criterion on nanoscale.

Speaker: prof. Graham Ogg, MRC Human Immunology Unit and Oxford University Hospitals, UK

Talk: Lipid-specific T cells and the skin

Time: 24th May 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Professor Graham Ogg is the Deputy Head of MRC Human Immunology Unit of the University of Oxford and he is based at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Graham is a consultant dermatologist and a scientist. He completed his doctoral training with University of Oxford and his clinical training in Oxford and London. Since, he had numerous prestigious appointments, such as the chairman of British Society of Investigative Dermatology and chairman of British Association of Dermatologists Research Committee. Currently, he is an MRC Programme Leader, National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator and UK’s Clinical Lead for Dermatology. He is also an editor for JAMA Dermatology, Clinical and Developmental Immunology as well as Clinical and Experimental Dermatology.  

His early pioneering work on MHC tetramers laid foundation to investigating specific T cell responses. His current research interest is the interactions between the cellular immune response and the epidermis. Graham’s research and clinical work is based on the investigations of mechanisms underlying inflammatory skin disease.  Particular areas of focus are the roles of unconventional CD1a-restricted T cells and innate lymphoid cells. Graham’s scientific work is recognised worldwide, and he received multiple awards in recognition of this, including Biomedical Research Centre Principal Fellowship, Pharmacia Allergy Research Foundation Award, Dermatologist International Achievement Award.

Speaker: prof. Roger Malina (The University of Texas at Dallas)

Talk: How Art and Design can help Redesign Science itself; both the scientific method and the social embedding of science

Time: 11th May 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Roger Malina is a physicist, astronomer and executive editor of the Leonardo publications at MIT Press. With dual appointments as a professor of arts and technology and a professor of physics at UT Dallas, he focuses on connections among the natural sciences and arts, design and humanities. He is a former director of the Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence (OAMP) in Marseille, and member of its observational cosmology group, which performs investigations on the nature of dark matter and dark energy. He is also a member of the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Study (Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, IMERA), an institute he helped to organize. IMERA seeks to contribute to trans-disciplinarity between the sciences and the arts and places emphasis on the human dimensions of the sciences. Malina was also a member of the jury for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2011, which awards a prize to those who create strategies with potential to “solve humanity's most pressing problems.” Malina's specialty is space instrumentation. He was the principal investigator for the NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer satellite at the University of California, Berkeley. The satellite was the first orbiting observatory to map the sky in the extreme ultraviolet band. The team at UC Berkeley had to invent new kinds of cameras, telescopes and data analysis techniques. The team was one of the first university groups to take over operation of a NASA satellite and operate it from a university, with teams of students. For 25 years, Malina has been involved with the Leonardo organizations, which his father founded in San Francisco and Paris. The organizations strive to promote work that explores the interactions between the arts and sciences, as well as between the arts and new technologies. Malina earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972, and his doctorate in astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1979.

Speaker: Charles Cantor (Sequenom Inc., San Diego, California, USA)

Talk: The future of DNA diagnostics

Time: Friday, 3^rd of July 2015, 12:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Charles Cantor, biographical note

Dr. Charles Cantor is a founder, and retired Chief Scientific Officer at SEQUENOM, Inc., which is a genetics discovery company with tools, information and strategies for determining the medical impact of genes and genetic variations. Dr. Cantor consults for a number of biotech companies including SEQUENOM, Agena and Retrotope. He is also the founder of SelectX Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company, Retrotope, an anti-aging company, and DiThera, a biotherapeutic company.

Dr. Cantor is professor emeritus of Biomedical Engineering and of Pharmacology and was the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology at Boston University. He is currently adjunct professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, adjunct professor of Molecular Biology at the Scripps Institute for Research, distinguished adjunct professor of Physiology and Biophysics at UC Irvine and adjunct professor at the Moscow institute of Physics and Technology. Prior to this, Dr. Cantor held positions in Chemistry and then in Genetics and Development at Columbia University and in Molecular Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Cantor was educated in chemistry at Columbia College (AB) and at the University of California Berkeley (PhD).

Dr. Cantor has been granted more than 60 US patents and, with Paul Schimmel, wrote a three-volume textbook on biophysical chemistry. He also coauthored the first textbook on Genomics titled 'The Science and Technology of the Human Genome Project'. In addition, he has published more than 450 peerreviewed articles, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

His major scientific accomplishments include the development of pulsed field electrophoresis, immuno PCR, affinity capture electrophoresis, the earliest uses of FRET to characterize distances in protein complexes and nucleic acids, the standard methods for assaying and purifying microtubule protein, various applications of nucleic acid mass spectrometry, and methods for noninvasive prenatal diagnostics. He is also considered to be one of the founders of the new field of synthetic biology.

Speaker: prof. Tadeusz Twardowski (Instytut Chemii Bioorganicznej PAN w Poznaniu)

Talk: Inne oblicze GMO, A.D. 2018

Time: 27 kwietnia 2018 r., godz: 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

https://ug.edu.pl/media/aktualnosci/75653/prof_tomasz_twardowski_o_gmo_ad_2018

Speaker: Dr. Luis M. Schang (Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, University of Alberta, Canada)

Talk: Chromatin silencing as an antiviral innate immune response

Time: Friday, 2015-10-16, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Seminar

Luis M. Schang, biographical note

Dr. Luis M. Schang is a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Alberta, cross-appointed to the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He is also a founding member of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology and a founding member and president of ProPhysis, Ltd. He is the director of the MD with Special Training in Research (MD-STIR) program. Dr. Schang is an active member of the International Society for Antiviral Research (ISAR) and the International Herpesvirus Workshop (IHW). He is a section editor for PLOS ONE, a member of the editorial boards of two of the official publications of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the Journal of Virology, and Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and an associate editor of Virology Journal. He also reviews papers for a number of high-impact scientific publications. He is a permanent or ad hoc member of grant review panels of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Institute of Health, USA (NIH), and a number of other International granting agencies. His research interests are centered in chemical virology, the use of small chemical probes to interrogate virus-infected cells to identify factors required for viral replication and leads toward the development of new antiviral drugs. His group discovered the first lipid-targeting antiviral compounds and spearheaded the study of chromatin dynamics and epigenetics in lytic HSV infections, playing a critical role in our current understanding of the roles of chromatin as an antiviral innate cellular defense. Previously, Dr. Schang had identified the roles of the cellular cyclin-dependent kinases in viral replication and pathogenesis, and championed the use of inhibitors of cellular protein kinases against virus-induced cancers. He has been continuously funded by Canadian and American sources since 2001. Dr. Schang has published 60 original research, review or editorial articles or book chapters and holds four issued patents on novel antivirals.

Speaker: Zbigniew Brzózka (Warsaw University of Technology, Poland)

Talk: Lab-on-a-Chip devices for long-term cell culture and anticancer drug activity evaluation

Time: Wednesday, 1^st of July 2015, 11:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Zbigniew Brzózka, biographical note

Prof. Zbigniew Brzózka obtained his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry at the Warsaw University of Technology, studying mechanisms of transition metal cations by carboxylic acids. He was a postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zurich in the middle 80’s, working on new membrane selective electrodes in Prof. W. Simon’s group supported by the Swiss National Science Fundation and by Orion Research, Inc. Then he came back to Department of Analytical Chemistry of Warsaw University of Technology and finished his Dr.Sc. in chemical sciences.

Within 1991 – 1993, he was working in postdoc position in Prof. D.N. Reinhoudt’s group (University of Twente), supported by the Royal Dutch Science Foundations (NWO, STW), by Priva and Sentron, Inc. He was involved in a number of projects on molecular recognition based on supramolecular chemistry and its application to chemical sensors (chemically modified field-effect transistors, membrane ion-selective electrodes, fibre-optic sensors) suitable for monitoring in clinical diagnostic and environmental protection. One of the most interesting topic was anion recognition (in nature, the selective complexation of anions takes place by hydrogen bonds) and his research was focused on a novel type of neutral anion receptors consisting of a combination of a Lewis acidic center and fragments involving hydrogen bonds.

Since 1998, he is tenured professor of bioanalytics in Faculty of Chemistry, Institute of Biotechnology, Department of Microbioanalytics and now heads the “Miniaturized analytical systems” team. His current research interests focus on miniaturized analytical systems (Lab-on-a-Chip) for monitoring of bioanalytes. Emphasis is now also being laid on the applications of polymer microfabrication technologies to microchemical analysis, i.e. the integrated microchips with optical and electrochemical detection principles dedicated to early diagnostics of genetic diseases as a novel approach to reliably diagnose patients, and protect them from mistaken diagnoses and disorder progress. Another field of interest of the partners will be the development of polymeric chips for human cell culture in unique, in vivo-mimicking microenvironment where studies of cellular growth and responses to external factors are conducted for drug screening and toxicology applications.

Zbigniew Brzózka has received Professor Subvention of The Foundation for Polish Science (2003-2006) and Wiktor Kemula Medal (Honour Award of Polish Society of Chemistry) (in 2010). Since September 2008, he is Dean of Faculty of Chemistry, Warsaw University of Technology.

Speaker: Dr. Pawel Zawadzki, Division of Molecular Biophysics, Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland

Talk: DNA repair processes as markers for personalized cancer therapies.

Time: 17th May 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Personalized medicine is an approach to improve treatment of an individual patient by taking into account specific changes in individual’s DNA. One aspect of this is an assessment of DNA repair mechanisms to tailor cancer treatment based on patient genomic profiles. Thus, evaluation of the efficiency of DNA repair provides a unique opportunity to apply targeted cancer therapies. We work on identifying DNA repair pathways involved in cell chemosensitivity by RNAi knockdown screening. We tested RNAi library for genes involved in different DNA repair pathways using the hTERT RPE-1 cell line. Silencing RNA interference (RNAi) of the target DNA repair gene was followed with various drug treatments to identify repair pathway-specific chemosensitivity. For example, we observed that silencing of Nucleotide Excision Repair but not Mismatch Repair drastically increase the sensitivity of the cells to popular chemotherapeutic – cisplatin. In conclusion, poor effectiveness of some repair pathways increase susceptibility to cisplatin. Obtaining this information for individual tumor can potentially help select most effective treatment for patients. We suggest that the comprehensive analysis of DNA repair pathways efficiencies, preferably achieved by cancer whole-genome sequencing could provide a diagnostic tool and should soon be applied in the day-to-day cancer diagnostics.

Speaker: prof. Bartosz Szczęsny (University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston)

Talk: Targeting mitochondrial DNA in lung diseases

Time: 20th April 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Dr. Szczesny received his BA, MS, and PhD degrees from the University of Wroclaw, Poland. He completed his post-doctoral training at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, in the United States, in Dr. Mitra’s laboratory, working on mitochondrial DNA repair. His research training includes positions at Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland; Lund University, Sweden; and University in Louvain la Neuve, Belgium.

Dr. Szczesny is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, and a Staff Scientist at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston, one of the leading pediatric burn centers in the United States. Dr. Szczesny is an expert in mitochondrial DNA damage and repair, and on the signaling of mitochondrial dysfunction in various pathological conditions. His major research interests are mitochondrial dysfunction in acute lung injury and development of new treatment strategy in lung cancer targeting mitochondria/mitochondrial DNA.

Speaker: Joanna Bagniewska (University of Reading, United Kingdom)

Workshop: Science Communication

Time: Friday, 3^rd of July 2015, 15:00

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2015, Kadyny Folwark Hotel&SPA

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Joanna Bagniewska, biographical note

Dr Joanna Bagniewska is a zoologist specializing in behavioral ecology and invasive species research.  She obtained her MSc and doctorate from Oxford University’s Zoology Department. Thus far she conducted research in five countries and visited over 40, having studied foxes and jackals in South Africa, wombats and wallabies in Australia, mole-rats in the USA and mink and bees in the UK. Currently she works as a teaching fellow for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading.

Joanna is passionate about science communication and is constantly engaged in a number of outreach activities. In 2014 she won FameLab Poland, a science communication competition for researchers, and went on to receive the Alumni Award in the international finals of the event. For the last two years she has co-organised the popular science conference “Science. Polish Perspectives”; more recently she has taken part in endeavours such as the theatrical Science Slam, science stand-up comedy for Bright Club Oxford and Museums Show Off, and the school-oriented I’m a Scientist – Get me out of here! She also described her research during a talk at TEDxWarsaw. Joanna regularly writes for Gazeta Wyborcza and Focus, and runs a blog on INNPoland.pl. In her free time (or what is left of it!) she acts as the principal ambassador for Oxford in The Kings Foundation, a mentoring scheme for university applicants.

Speaker: prof. Alfredo Nicosia, University of Naples (Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-founder of Nouscom AG)

Talk: Soon

Time: 23th February 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Prof. Alfredo Nicosia is the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and Co-founder of Nouscom AG, a biotech company dedicated to the development of next generation immunotherapies to beat cancer (www.nouscom.com). He is also CEO of Reithera srl, a Biotech involved in the development of vector-based anti-infectious vaccines.

Alfredo was a co-founder of Okairos (recently acquired by GSK) and served as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer, contributing to the preclinical and clinical development of a number of vaccines (including vaccines against HCV, Ebola and malaria) and monoclonal antibodies against infectious diseases and cancer.

Alfredo’s experience includes the positions of senior director of the Viral Diseases Vaccine program at Istituto di Ricerche di Biologia Molecolare (IRBM), staff scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany and project leader at the Sclavo Research Centre in Siena, Italy.

He has also published over 150 articles in leading journals on a range of subjects, including viral and bacterial infection and vaccines and holds a number of patents and patent applications.

Alfredo holds a degree in chemistry from the University of Rome, Italy and is a full Professor of Molecular Biology at the University Federico II, Naples (Italy).

Speaker: dr Anna Marusiak (CENT Warszawa)

Talk: Mixed-Lineage Kinase 4 (MLK4) – a new player in breast cancer progression

Time: 5th April 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

I graduated with a MSc in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Wroclaw. I then moved to the UK where I did my doctoral studies at the University of Birmingham. During PhD I investigated the contribution of fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) to the malignant phenotype of breast cancer cells using a proteomic approach. My postdoctoral fellowship took place at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute in Signalling Networks in Cancer Group. Since then my work in cell signalling has been focused on the family of Mixed-Lineage Kinases (MLKs) and their contribution to carcinogenesis.

In December 2015 I started a position as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre of New Technologies in the Laboratory of Experimental Medicine. The grants that I have been awarded, Fuga by NCN and Homing by FNP, allowed me to investigate the role of MLK4 in breast cancer progression. MLK4 is a serine/threonine kinase that plays a role in a variety of cellular processes. According to TCGA, amplification and mRNA upregulation of MLK4 is present in 23% of invasive breast carcinoma and our transcriptomic analysis revealed that it is most abundantly expressed in triple-negative breast cancer subtype. Nevertheless, the role of MLK4 in the pathogenesis of breast cancer has been poorly understood so far. My talk will focus on our recent data where we identified MLK4 as a novel therapeutic target for triple-negative breast cancer.

Speaker: dr Vladimir Y. Gorshkov (Kazan Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics)

Talk: To rot, or not to rot: comprehensive view on the interactions of phytopathogenic pectobacteria with plants

Time: 9th March 2018, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Dr. Vladimir Y. Gorshkov is a Senior Researcher at Federal Research Center: Kazan Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Science in Kazan, and a Senior Lecturer at Kazan Federal University, Russia. His main research interests are connected wiht phytopathology, plant physiology, microbiology and molecular biology. Vladimir defended his Phd thesis entitled “Cell-to-cell communication in the populations of Pectobacterium atrosepticum SCRI1043 during the interaction with host plant and under starvation” in 2009 and since then his major scientific interest is signal exchange between bacteria and host plants during interaction. Vladimir is an expert in molecular aspects of symbiosis and pathogenesis and at the moment serves as a Phd student supervisor of 3 PhD students. He is an author and co-author of more than 20 original research papers. His beloved bug is Pectobacterium atrosepticum and bellowed host plant: potato and tobacco. 

Speakers: Prof. Ivo Feussner, University of Gottingen; Prof. Roman Zubarev, Karolinska Institute; Dr Andreas Marquardt, University of Konstanz; Dr Michal Sharon, Weizmann Institute of Science; Dr Piotr Stefanowicz, University of Wroclaw; Cyrus Papan, Sciex;

Topic: Innovations in environmental friendly productions of lipids and proteins for industry

Time: 18 March 2015

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Open lecture session

Open session organized within the MOBI4Health project during the workshop focusing on application of mass spectrometry in biological science. The main subject of the workshop is “Innovations in environmental friendly productions of lipids and proteins for industry”.

Speaker: dr Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka, dr Magdalena Żadkowska (University of Gdańsk, Poland)

Talk: Gender Gap in Biotechnology

Time: 1 December 2017, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka, notka biograficzna

Tenerka umiejętności menedżerskich, wykładowczyni akademicka w Zakładzie Psychologii Międzykulturowej i Rodzaju w Instytucie Psychologii Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego; mediatorka oraz ekspertka ds różnorodności i równowagi praca-dom

Kierowniczka międzynarodowego konsorcjum badawczego PAR Migration Navigator (www.migrationnavigator.org)- WLB_GE "Socio-cultural and Psychological Predictors of Work-Life Balance and Gender Equality- Cross-Cultural Comparison of Polish and Norwegian Families".

Autorka i ekspertka ds. Programu oraz zaleceń organizacyjnych pomocy/ doradztwa personalnego dla kobiet i ich partnerów i Innowacyjnego programu oraz zaleceń organizacyjnych systemu szkoleń adaptacyjnych do pracy (model adaptacji do pracy) w projekcie  "PI – Innowacyjny model godzenia przez kobiety życia zawodowego i rodzinnego" współfinansowanego ze środków Unii Europejskiej w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego.

Trenerka nagrodzonego w konkursie na Dobre Praktyki EFS projektu szkoleniowego KiM Kobieta i Mężczyzna Liderami Pomorskich Przedsiębiorstw realizowanym przez Gdańską Fundację Kształcenia Menedżerów.

Ekspertka medialna: Gazeta Wyborcza, Radio Gdańsk, Polskie Radio "Trójka", Newsweek.

Współautorka i koordynatorka wdrażania Gdańskiego Modelu Integracji Migrantów, panel Edukacji Wyższej.
 

Magdalena Żadkowska, notka biograficzna

Pracuje jako adiunkt na Uniwersytecie Gdańskim; prowadzi zajęcia z Zarządzania projektami społecznymi, Komunikacji międzykulturowej, Zarządzania różnorodnością w organizacji i Komunikacji interpersonalnej.

Prowadzi zajęcia na studiach podyplomowych MBA: Zarządzanie różnorodnością, Metodologia projektu dyplomowego, Kierowanie zespołem.

Analizuje życie domowe i zawodowe par w Polsce i na migracji. Bada podział obowiązków i negocjowanie godzenia życia zawodowego z rodzinnym.

Ukończyła socjologię na Uniwersytecie Gdańskim i kulturoznawstwo na Uniwersytecie Jagiellońskim. Jest doktorem nauk humanistycznych w zakresie socjologii, obronionym na Uniwersytecie Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu. Ukończyła warsztat Kena Cushnera (nauczanie kompetencji kulturowych), ukończyła Szkołę Trenerów TROP (szkolenia oparte na empatii) i kurs trenerów Szkoły dla rodziców. 

Rzeczniczka równouprawnienia i różnorodności, bardzo chętnie angażuje się w różnego rodzaju projekty upowszechniające naukę – jest trenerką biznesową, ekspertką medialną i autorką projektów społecznych.

Trenerka biznesowa, specjalistka ds.  Komunikacji wewnętrznej, Komunikacji międzykulturowej, Zarządzania wartościami, Zarządzania wiekiem, Budowania zespołów, Godzenia życia zawodowego z rodzinnym i Wdrażania elastycznych form pracy.

Autorka i Koordynatorka merytoryczna nagrodzonego przez Ministerstwo Rozwoju Regionalnego w konkursie na Dobre Praktyki EFS 2011 projektu szkoleniowego KiM Kobieta i Mężczyzna Liderami i Liderkami Pomorskich Przedsiębiorstw (5 edycji).

Trenerka  w projekcie KiM Kobieta i Mężczyzna Liderami i Liderkami Pomorskich Przedsiębiorstw.
Liderka badań socjologicznych w międzynarodowym konsorcjum badawczym PAR Migration Navigator (www.migrationnavigator.org)- WLB_GE "Socio-cultural and Psychological Predictors of Work-Life Balance and Gender Equality- Cross-Cultural Comparison of Polish and Norwegian Families".
Autorka metody szkoleń dla par z Godzenia życia zawodowego z rodzinnym.
Badaczka w projekcie "A więc siedzisz w domu, etnograficzne studium pracy wykonywanej z domu", grant Narodowego Centrum Nauki.
Autorka i ekspertka ds. Programu oraz zaleceń organizacyjnych pomocy/ doradztwa personalnego dla kobiet i ich partnerów i Innowacyjnego programu oraz zaleceń organizacyjnych systemu szkoleń adaptacyjnych do pracy (model adaptacji do pracy) w projekcie  „PI – Innowacyjny model godzenia przez kobiety życia zawodowego i rodzinnego” współfinansowanego ze środków Unii Europejskiej w ramach Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego.
Ekspertka w projekcie "7 kroków do Work-Life-Balance", organizowanego przez Pracodawców Pomorza.
Ekspertka medialna: Gazeta Wyborcza, Radio Gdańsk, Newsweek, TV4.
Wykładała na uczelniach polskich i zagranicznych.
Współautorka i koordynatorka wdrażania Gdańskiego Modelu Integracji Migrantów, panel Edukacji Wyższej.
 

Speaker: Frank Graage (Steinbeis-Forschungszentrum Technologie-Management Nordost, Germany)

Talk: Motivation to get engaged with Horizon 2020 for scientists. Why and when participate - a realistic view to make the decision

Time: 29 May, 2015, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Lecture

Frank Graage, biographical note

Frank Graage (Steinbeis Team Northeast) - Expert on EU proposal preparation and management in Life Sciences, EU-Evaluator

Speaker: dr hab. Magdalena Król, prof. SGGW (Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego, Poland)

Talk: Seksmisja w nauce

Time: 1 December 2017, 9:30 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

Magdalena Król, notka biograficzna

Profesor Magdalena Król urodziła się w Płocku. Jest lekarzem weterynarii, doktorem habilitowanym nauk weterynaryjnych, profesorem nadzwyczajnym Szkoły Głównej Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego w Warszawie oraz Kierownikiem Zakładu Fizjologii na Wydziale Medycyny Weterynaryjnej. W 2017 roku była profesorem wizytującym na Uniwersytecie „La Sapienza” w Rzymie. Zajmuje się onkologią eksperymentalną, szczególnie fascynują ją terapie komórkowe i wpływ układu immunologicznego na powstawanie przerzutów nowotworowych.

Odbyła liczne staże naukowe w Holandii, Belgii, Szwecji i USA. Jest laureatką wielu nagród m.in. Stypendium START FNP (2011 i 2012), Stypendium MNiSW dla wybitnych młodych naukowców (2012), Young Investigator Scholarship in Veterinary Medicine ufundowanej przez Pfizer Animal Health (2012),  Nagród Naukowych POLITYKI w kategorii nauka (2013), stypendium habilitacyjnego L’Oreal i Unesco „Dla kobiet nauki” (2013). W 2014 r. została laureatką plebiscytu „Polacy z werwą”, a w 2017 „Człowiekiem roku 2016” w kategorii nauka w plebiscycie „Gazety Wyborczej”.

W ubiegłym roku otrzymała prestiżowy grant Europejskiej Rady ds. Badań (ERC). Dzięki niemu przez pięć lat zespół naukowców będzie realizował projekt badawczy mający na celu wyjaśnienie zjawiska biologicznego „TRAIN” odkrytego przez prof. Magdalenę Król, która chciałaby wykorzystać je w praktyce onkologicznej.

Speaker: Dr Agnieszka Wożniak (Leuven Cancer Institute, Belgium)

Talk: Targeted therapy in mesenchymal diseases - preclinical drug testing in vivo

Time: 26 May 2017, 9 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Speaker: Dr. Niki Karachaliou (Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) – Badalona, Barcelona, Spain)

Talk: Integrated research in STAT3 in cancer stem cells. Early adaptive resistance to EGFR inhibition in EGFR mutant Non-Small-Cell-Lung-Cancer

Time: 27 March, 2015, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Seminar

Niki Karachaliou, biographical note

Dr Niki Karachaliou is a medical oncologist and member of the Translational Research Unit of the Instituto Oncológico Dr Rosell in Barcelona. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Athens Medical School (1994-2002) and achieved a score of 9 (maximum possible 10). She completed a three-year residency in internal medicine, including six months in hematology, and a second three-year residency in medical oncology at the University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece (2005-2011). In 2012, she was accepted as a translational research fellow under the mentorship of world-renowned medical oncologist and translational researcher Dr Rafael Rosell in Barcelona, Spain.

Speaker: dr Vittorio Venturi (International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB),Trieste, Italy)

Talk: Interspecies signaling in plant associated bacteria

Time: 08th March 2019, 9:00 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58, hall 042

dr Vittorio Venturi graduated from Edinburgh University, UK, and received his Ph.D. degree in Microbiology from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. During his PhD research he focused in the regulation of iron-transport processes of beneficial plant associated bacteria which promote plant growth; the monopolization of iron nearby plant roots is an important trait which keeps microbial pathogens away. He then moved as a postdoctoral fellow to the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB), Trieste, Italy, where he started investigating intercellular signaling among bacteria. He then went on to become Group Leader at ICGEB continuing his studies on intercellular signaling. He has published over 140 research articles in peer-reviewed international journals. He is interested in (i) how plant associated bacteria undergo interspecies communication and interkingdom signaling with plants and (ii) plant microbiomes and the development of microbial products for a more sustainable agriculture https://www.icgeb.org/vittorio-venturi.html

Abstract: Just like what occurs in humans, plants have been recently recognized as meta-organisms possessing a distinct microbiome that have a close relationship with their associated microorganisms. The plant microbiome presents an additional reservoir of genes that the plant can have access to when needed. Plant health is thought to heavily depend also on its microbiome and signaling among microorganisms is crucial for the establishment of the microbial community. Understanding how bacteria undergo interspecies signaling in the microbiome will be a big challenge for future studies. We are using several rice diseases as a model of interspecies bacterial interactions, which also highlights their role in bacterial plant pathogenicity. In addition, we are designing experiments to begin to understand how beneficial plant associated bacteria communicate and establish multispecies communities. Understanding these signaling pathways will help in devising new ways for a more sustainable agriculture.

Speaker: dr Andrzej T. Wierzbicki (University of Michigan Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB), USA)

Talk: Mechanisms of RNA-directed DNA methylation

Time: 22 May 2017, 15pm

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

RNA-directed DNA methylation is a conserved process where small RNAs target transposons and other sequences for repression by establishing chromatin modifications. A central element of this process is long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) which has been proposed to serve as a binding scaffold for small RNAs and associated proteins. In Arabidopsis thaliana, this lncRNA is produced by a specialized RNA polymerase known as Pol V. Pol V transcripts serve as a binding scaffold for several RNA-binding proteins, which mediate the recruitment of chromatin modifying enzymes. These enzymes contribute to the repression of transposon activity and help determine the boundaries between heterochromatic transposons and their euchromatic environment. RNA-directed DNA methylation has also been implicated in controlling organization of chromosomes, which may explain how it affects expression of distant genes.

Speaker: Peter Gimeson (Malvern Instruments Ltd.)

Talk: Managing heat and disorder, calorimetric assays in life sciences [abstract, PDF]

Time: 6 March, 2015, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Seminar

Peter Gimeson, biographical note

Peter joined Malvern Instruments Ltd 2014 in connection to the acquisition of MicroCal from GE Healthcare. Prior that, Peter worked at GE healthcare, Life sciences as senior application specialist for microcalorimetry covering Europe, Middle East and Africa. The function allows him to interact with users on a daily basis regarding all aspects of instrumentation, assay developments and data analysis in Isothermal Titration Calorimetry and Differential Scanning Calorimetry. He is based in Uppsala, Sweden. The role includes working closely with MicroCal R&D, service and Instrument user groups in both academic and industrial environments. A large part of his work is conducting training sessions, support visits and data analysis consultancy on/off site. Peter holds a Ba in Chemistry, Umeå University, Sweden

Speaker: Sebastian Lewandowski PhD (Karolinska Institute, MBB, Stockholm, Sweden)

Talk: Vascular injury accelerates the onset of ALS neurodegeneration: evidence from mouse models and patients.

Time: 30 June 2017, 9 am

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Abrahama 58

Efficient delivery of oxygen and nutrients is essential for correct brain function. Our studies focus on the mechanisms of vascular injury to explain dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier and decreased cerebral blood flow in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We found that presymptomatic activation of the PDGFC pathway leads to dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier in ALS mouse models and is correlated with younger age at disease onset in mouse models and patients. Vascular injury also leads to dysfunction of the vascular basement membrane where perivascular astrocytes detach from cerebral blood vessels and increase expression of specific extracellular matrix proteins. We found that the increase of vascular basement membrane proteins in plasma of ALS patients is correlated with decreased levels of glucose brain uptake and younger age at disease onset. In summary our findings show that cerebral vessel injury can be a risk factor for young onset of ALS neurodegeneration.

Speaker: Dr. Tim Maisch, PhD (University Hospital Regensburg, Germany)

Talk: A new trend against Superbugs: The Photodynamic Principle [abstract in PDF]

Time: 20 February, 2015, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited Lecture

Tim Maisch, biographical note

Tim Maisch studied Biology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. He gained extensive laboratory experience working under the guidance of Prof. Dr. M. Mach at the Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, Univ. of Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1997 he received his diploma and achieved his Ph.D. with a thesis titled "Upregulation of protein expression on endothelial cells infected with human cytomegalovirus” in 2001. Since 2002, he has been working as postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital of Regensburg on photodynamic inactivation of multi-resistant bacteria. He gained his Postdoctoral Habilitation in 2009 (venia legendi). Since 2008, he is the head of the laboratory of the Department of Dermatology. Currently he is the laboratory head of the Antimicrobial Photodynamic and Cold Plasma Research Unit at the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Regensburg.

Main objectives of his research interests are:

• Investigation of the role of singlet oxygen and oxygen consumption in photodynamic inactivation of bacteria as well as the detection of singlet oxygen directly by its luminescence
• Development of new photosensitizers for the photodynamic treatment of bacterial and fungal infections in cooperation with the Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Regensburg
• Preclinical evaluation of new photosensitizers for topical application in dentistry and dermatology
• Development of photodynamic active surfaces to prevent contamination with microorganisms
• Application of cold atmospheric plasma against microorganisms in cooperation with the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestic Physics (MPE)

Research awards

• 3/2012 Award for best poster presentation during the 39. ADF-Annual Conference, Marburg (01.03.-03.03.2012) mit dem „Photodynamic killing of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) for the first time using TMPyP”
• 3/2008 Arnold-Rikli-Award to support photo-biological research interests of light in relation to human medicine in the future
• 11/2006 PDT-2006 Award to support the research interest in photodynamic therapy and fluorescence diagnosis of skin diseases
• 3/2006 Award for best poster presentation during the 33. ADF-Annual Conference, Aachen (23.03. – 25.03.2006) “Investigation of photodynamic inactivation of bacteria using the detection of singlet oxygen luminescence”

Affiliations

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

European Society for Photobiology (ESP)

Until now he has 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals and he is associate editor of the journal Photochemistry & Photobiology Sciences and a member of the editorial board of Anti-Infective Agents in Medicinal Chemistry.

Speaker: Agnieszka Bernat-Wójtowska, PhD (Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Embryonic stem cells: tools, cure and more

Time: November 28, 2014, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG&MUG, Kładki 24, Gdańsk, lecture hall B

Category: Lecture

Speaker: Jose Maria Valpuesta, PhD (Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain)

Talk: The protein folding pathway: a coordinated network of molecular machines

Time: October 17, 2014, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG&MUG, Kładki 24, Gdańsk, Lecture Hall B

Category: Invited seminar

José María Valpuesta, biographical note

José María Valpuesta obtained his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry at the University of the Basque Country, Spain in 1985. Later he worked at the Centro de Biología Molecular (CSIC/Madrid, Spain). In 2003 he obtained the professor tile and started working at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología. In 2006-7 held position of Vice-director and 2007-13 director of Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, one of the most important centers of molecular biology in Spain. Between 2005 and 2009 prof. Valpuesta held position of President of the Spanish Microscopy Society. Currently he is head of the Macromolecular Structure Department of the National Centre of Biotechnology.

As the researcher prof. Valpuesta is co-author of 137 indexed papers (among others in Nature, Science, Nat Struct. Mol. Biol., Nat Cell Biol, Mol. Cell, PNAS USA, EMBO J.), in the field of membrane structure, protein folding, molecular chaperones, macromolecular complexes and electron microscopy. Citation Hirsch index: 42 (~5700 citations). Author of 1 book and 5 chapters in collective books. His achievements were honored by awards granted by Spanish Ministry of Education, Bruker Prize of the Biophysical Spanish Society, European Microscopy Society. In addition, prof. Valpuesta is the member of “Faculty of 1000” and “Academia Europaea”. He worked as reviewer for National Science Foundation (USA), Israel Science Foundation, Human Frontiers Science Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Argentinian Science Foundation (FONDECIT) and several Spanish Funding agencies.

Prof. Valpuesta as teacher gives lectures about Biomedicine, Molecular and Cell Biology and Biophysics at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Moreover, occasionally he gives lectures at University of Crete (Greece), Lisbon and Porto (Portugal), Santiago (Chile). Until 1995 he was supervisor of 10 postdocks, 15 Ph.D students and 6 Master students.

During last 10 years prof. Valpuesta has helped to establish cryoelectron microscopy at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB), and have contributed to forming a core of seven groups at the institute that use this and other techniques, complemented by image processing tools, to structurally characterize a large variety of biological specimens. This community of electron microscopists is perhaps unique in the world and certainly in Spain, where his group is a reference. The most influential part of his work deals with the structural and functional characterization of various chaperones, which has helped to structurally confirm the existence of a network of interactions between different chaperones that make the protein folding pathway more efficient. He has published more than 60 papers over the last 10 years, some in such journals as Science, Mol. Cell, Nat Cell Biol, Nat Struct Mol Biol, J Exp Med, PNAS USA, and EMBO J. Seven of these papers were selected by the “Faculty of 1000”; his work has received more than 2500 citations since 2009.

He also pioneered in Spain the use of single-molecule techniques such as optical tweezers, which have been used to study the forces involved in the function of different protein and nucleic acid molecules.

Speaker: Binay Chaubey, PhD (Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Intervention of HIV replication using anti-sense approach

Time: October 31, 2014, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG&MUG, Kładki 24, Gdańsk, Lecture Hall B

Category: Lecture

Speaker: Vladimir Teif, PhD (German Cancer Research Center DKFZ and BioQuant, Heidelberg)

Talk: Deciphering the rules of epigenetic regulation during stem cell development

Time:  June 27, 2014, 10:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG&MUG, Kładki 24, Gdańsk, lecture hall B

Category: Invited seminar

See abstract [PDF]

Speaker: Michał Dąbrowski, PhD (Nencki Institute, Poland)

Talk: Analysis of global transcriptional regulation in brain starting from genomic and expression data

Time: April 11, 2014, 9:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG&MUG, Kładki 24, Gdańsk, lecture hall B

Category: Invited seminar

Michał Dabrowski, biographical note

Physician by education, PhD in experimental molecular biology, about 10 years’ experience in bioinformatics, mainly analysis of global gene expression and regulatory genomics data.
Employment history (main places): Nencki Institute, Szpital Specjalistyczny w Kościerzynie, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Currently: Nencki Institute, Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology, head: prof. Bożena Kamińska.
Key scientific achievements: demonstration of cell-autonomous regulation of differentiation of hippocampal neurons, identification of transcriptional regulators common to stroke and seizures, demonstration that matrix attachment region binding protein modulates transcriptional activation, identification of key proteins stimulating host microglia to promote tumor growth, creation of the first regulatory genomics database for the rat.
Ongoing projects: a bioinformatics project of creation of a portal with tools for regulatory genomics, and a (starting) experimental project utilizing very high-throughput next generation sequencing to identify TFs involved in microglia reeducation by glioma.

Speaker: Prof. Michael Bölker (Philipps University of Marburg, Germany)

Talk: Of fungi and men: Ustilago maydis as a model system to study ribosomal readthrough and peroxisome function

Time: Wednesday, 3rd of September 2014, 9:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Michael Bölker, biographical note

Professor for Genetics at the Department of Biology, Philipps University Marburg. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry at the Institute for Genbiological Research in Berlin working on the field of bacteriophage genetics. Post doctoral fellow at the Institute for Microbiology and Genetics of the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich working on fungal mating type determination. Since 1997 full professor in Marburg. Research interests: Regulation of morphogenesis and cytokinesis in the dimorphic fungus Ustilago maydis. Functional genomics to study peroxisome function and fungal secondary metabolism. Translational recoding and its function for intracellular localization of proteins. Michael Bölker is member of the Marburg Center for Synthetic Microbiology (SYNMIKRO) and the Frankfurt Excellence Cluster for Integrative Fungal Research.

Speaker: Prof. Scott Gold (University of Georgia, USA)

Talk: An earful of corn smut

Time: Wednesday, 3rd of September 2014, 8:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Scott Gold, biographical note

Research Plant Pathologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service.  Gold earned a PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of California in the laboratory of the pioneer plant pathologist Noel Keen.  He joined ARS in 2011 after 17 years as a Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Georgia (UGA). At UGA among other fungal plant pathogens Gold explored the genetics of dimorphism in the corn smut pathogen, Ustilago maydis.  He and colleagues, primarily through forward genetic approaches, demonstrated the control of fungal dimorphism (budding vs filamentous growth forms) by the cAMP and MAP kinase signaling pathways. This ability to convert between these forms is critical to the ability of the pathogen to cause disease.  Currently at the USDA-ARS, Gold is involved in studies toward the control of food contamination by poisonous mycotoxins. Gold has been an active volunteer in the American Phytopathological Society (APS) serving as a two term member of the APS Public Policy Board with focus on microbial genomics and culture collections.  He is the recipient of the APS 2006 Outstanding Volunteer award and the 2010 APS Excellence in Teaching Award .  He just completed a three year term as the inaugural Director of the APS Office of Education. While carrying out ARS research he continues to teach a general science elective course on that amazing biology of fungi at UGA entitled "Fungi, friends and foes".

Speaker: Prof. Philip C Lyons (University of Houston-Downtown, USA)

Talk: Diversity in the composition and function of fungal communities of native and farmed prairie soils

Time: Friday, 5th of September 2014, 16:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Philip C Lyons, biographical note

Phil Lyons earned his PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Georgia and MS in Plant Pathology from Texas A & M University.  He was Post-doctoral Associate in the Departments of Plant Pathology and Biology at Purdue University, and is now Associate Professor of Biology and Microbiology in the Department of Natural Sciences at UHD where he teaches courses on Biology of Fungi, Plant Biology, Microbial Biotechnology, and on Methods in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.  He also teaches General and Introductory Biology for science majors and non-majors.  Lyons’ current research concerns diversity and ecology of tallgrass prairie soil fungi, including effects of farming and restoration.  A related project involves the occurrence and variation in substrate specificities of laccases and other oxidoreductases produced by prairie soil fungi.  He recently began a project on the diversity and geographical distribution of truffles (Tuber spp.) associated with pecans (Carya illinoiensis) and other hardwoods throughout different vegetation zones of Texas (USA)  Prior research involved plant-fungal interactions, including both pathogenic relationships in corn and sorghum and endophytic symbioses in tall fescue grass.

Speaker: Prof. Alessio Mengoni (University of Florence, Italy)

Topic: Principles of genome analysis and comparative bacterial genomics

Time: 7-14 January, 2015

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited Lectures

Lectures for students - more information here [link]. Please check PROGRAM [PDF].

Alessio Mengoni, biographical note

Assistant Professor (Reader) in the School of Science, class of Genomics, Master Degree course in Molecular Biotechnologies.

I'm working on the molecular microbial ecology and bacterial genomics of the nitrogen fixing symbiotic bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti and of bacterial communities associated with plants.

Speaker: Aleksandra Małyska (Institute of  Bioorganic Chemistry of Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland)

Talk: Are we ready for GMO?

Time: Saturday, 6^th of September 2014, 8:30

Workshop: GMO and GM goods on Polish market, Factors underlying  commercialization of  GMO in Poland within EU

Time: Saturday, 6^th of September 2014, 10:15

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Aleksandra Małyska, biographical note

Aleksandra Małyska received a Master’s degree in medical biotechnology at Poznan University of Medical Sciences in 2010. The second area of her research involves social sciences. She carried out a Directed Individual Study in social sciences and received a Master’s degree in Psychology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in 2013. She continues her research within PhD studies at Lodz University of Technology. Since 2013 she works at Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on: public perception of innovative biotechnology, prospects for the commercial use of genetically engineered products, and biotechnology within the knowledge based bio-economy (KBBE).

Speaker: Prof. Magdalena Mikołajczyk-Chmiela (University of Łódź, Poland)

Talk: Guinea pig model of Helicobacter pylori infection, inflammation and immune response

Time: Wednesday, 3^rd of September 2014, 12:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Magdalena Mikołajczyk-Chmiela, biographical note

With a master degree on biology, microbiology as speciality, upon her PhD on Immunology in 1991 and habilitation in 1999, Magdalena Mikołajczyk-Chmiela was nominated in 2005 on the position of permanent Professor (medical microbiology, immunology) at the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz.  She is currently head of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Biology at the Institute of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Immunology. Her research concerns the immunology of infectious diseases including: immune processes regulating host-pathogen interactions, bacterial virulence factors that determine the course of infections, the use of microorganisms in the design and manufacture of biological components for potential therapeutic use, prevention and diagnostic. With particular attention she leads research on Helicobacter pylori infections, which are responsible for gastric and duodenal ulcers and even stomach cancers. Work on this subject she began in 1992, being a member of the research team at the Department of Medical Microbiology, Lund University in Sweden. With her experience she published numerous papers, review articles, coordinated and participated in a number of research projects supported by the Polish Research Committee, the Polish Ministry of Science and Education as well as the National Center of Science, and evaluated them as an expert. She is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Medical Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences and the editorial board of the World Journal of Gastroenterology. She shares her professional activity between research work and academic professor activity.

Speaker: Prof. Maria Mione (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)

Talk: The zebrafish as a tool in cancer genetics and cancer cell biology

Time: Thursday, 4^th of September 2014, 9:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Maria Mione, biographical note

Group Leader at the Institute of Toxicology and Genetics Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT.

Research interest: Cancer and disease models using the zebrafish platform. Special focus on genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of transformation and cell reprogramming by oncogenes.

Dr Mione graduated in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, trained as a neurologist and received a PhD in Neurobiology from University College London. After postdoctoral work at University of California at San Francisco, on her return to U.K, she adopted the zebrafish for her studies on neural development and disease. In 2005 she moved to the Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan and developed zebrafish models for the study of cancer cell biology. Dr. Mione’s work focuses on understanding early events in melanoma, myeloid leukemia and glioma development, including cancer initiating cells, mechanisms of transformation, epigenetic regulation and immune responses. From 2012, she is Visiting Professor at the Institute of Toxicology and Genetics at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). She is an active member of the international community of zebrafish researchers. She organized of the VI European Development and Genetics Zebrafish meeting, held in Rome in 2009, and the satellite workshop on Cancer and Immune Responses in Zebrafish in July 2009. She was part of the planning committee of the 4th Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators in Asilomar, 2009-2011, Vice Chair of the Cost action BM8024, EuFishBioMed and funding member of the European Zebrafish & Medaka Society (http://www.eufishbiomed.kit.edu/). She is a member of the scientific board of the newly established Zebrafish Disease Models society

(http://www.zdmsociety.org/internation_expert_board.html).

Speaker: Jolanta Paradziej-Łukowicz, PhD (Medical University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Ethical and legal rules and regulations for animals experiment performance

Time: Wednesday, 3^rd of September 2014, 11:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Jolanta Paradziej-Łukowicz, biographical note

Director of Tri-City Central Animal Laboratory – Research and Service Centre of the Medical University of Gdansk.

She received MSc and PhD at the Faculty of Pharmacy, the Medical University of Gdańsk, and further scientific training at the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology and at the Biochemistry Chemical Faculty, Technical University of Gdansk.

She was particularly involved in many projects associated with investigation of potential anticancer drugs anticancer activity on murine tumors and human tumor xenograft models in vivo. She also cooperates with biochemical and pharmaceutical industry in the field of potential antidiabetes drugs activity investigating.

In general she has expertise in conducting animal experiments and evaluation biological activity of compounds of chemical and natural origin. In 2011 -2013 she took part in Expert Working Group (EWG) on Education and Training within the context of 2010/63/EU Directive. For the past three year she also has organizing seminars and practical trainings for people performing experiments or doing work with or around laboratory animals with regional and state-wide range.

Speaker: Prof. Jan Sadowski (Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland)

Talk: Arabidopsis – The Model Plant For Biotechnology

Time: Friday, 5^th of September 2014, 14:15

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Jan Sadowski, biographical note

Head of Biotechnology Department at Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University (from 2001 up to now). He received extensive doctoral and postdoctoral training in plant molecular genetics and genomics: Fullbright-Hays fellowship, 1979-1980 (12 months); Rutgers University (4 months) and Texas A&M University (8 months); post-doc at University of Perpignan, France (18 months in the period of 1987-1992); geneticist position at University of California, Davis, USA (2.5 years, 1993-1996). His main achievements  are connected with understanding the structure, organization and evolution of Brassicaceae genomes. Currently, he is involved in genome-wide functional studies on cellular signalisation networks activated in plant cells in response to environmental stresses, such as drought, salinity and ozone. His team applies diverse physiological and genetic tests including specific signalisation pathway inhibition or activation and agro-transformation with protein kinases (CDPK and MAP kinases) and protein phosphatases (PP2C ABI1 and ABI2) encoding genes, combined with the genetic analysis of insertional mutants and/or specific transient gene expression. Selected genes with beneficiary characteristics for plant adaptation to drought stress (such as BnCDPK5 and AtCDPK5) or other interesting phenotypes (BnABI1 and AtABI) have been introduced to the winter rapeseed to prove and study further their application values. Prof. Sadowski is an author and co-author of dozens of peer-reviewed publications (Genetics, Nucleic Acids Research, Plant Journal, Journal of Experimental Botany, Molecular Plant, Molecular and General Genomics, among others).

Speaker: Prof. Amy Sater (University of Houston, USA)

Talk: Xenopus: a Model System for Studies of Gene Regulation and Vertebrate Development

Time: Friday, 5^th of September 2014, 15:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Amy Sater, biographical note

Developmental biologist and Professor of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston.

She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Texas before embarking upon postdoctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley. Her ongoing research interests include cell signaling and the molecular regulation of embryonic development in the African Clawed Frog Xenopus laevis.  She has also been extensively involved in the development of genomics resources in Xenopus, contributing to genetic mapping and genome assembly in Xenopus tropicalis; she also served on the Xenopus Genome Steering Committee 2005-2013.  Her current studies address the roles of microRNAs in the initiation of neural development, using a combination of genetic and biochemical approaches.  She served as Instructor for the “Cell and Developmental Biology of Xenopus” course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory from 2011-2014.

Speaker: Prof. Klaus Schughart (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Germany)

Talk: Host-pathogen-interactions during influenza infections – studies in the mouse model system

Time: Wednesday, 3^rd of September 2014, 15:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Klaus Schughart, biographical note

Klaus Schughart is Head of the Department of Infection Genetics (INFG) at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) in Germany. The HZI is a government funded public research institute dedicated to perform basic research on host-pathogen interactions with the aim to develop new strategies for diagnostics, prevention and therapy of infectious diseases.

The main research interest in the IFNG department is to understand the role of genetic factors that determine resistance or susceptibility to influenza A virus infections. For these studies, we are using the mouse as model system. We established models for lethal and non-lethal infections using different mouse populations and knock-out models.

Speaker: Cecilia Lanny Winata, PhD (International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Poland)

Talk: Zebrafish in the study of developmental genomics

Time: Thursday, 4^th of September 2014, 12:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Cecilia Lanny Winata, biographical note

Group leader at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw.
Research interest: developmental biology using zebrafish as a model organism, the study of developmental mechanisms using genomics.
She obtained her PhD in 2009 from the National University of Singapore in the field of zebrafish developmental biology. She worked as a post doctoral fellow at the Genome Institute of Singapore where she picked up genomics techniques and applied them to study the regulation of maternal to zygotic transition and functional characterization of a transcription factor in zebrafish.  Currently, her lab is studying transcriptional regulation and epigenetics during heart development, as well as the regulation of early embryonic development in zebrafish.

Speaker: Małgorzata Wiweger, PhD (International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Poland)

Talk: Zebrafish husbandry and health

Time: Thursday, 4^th of September 2014 11:15

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Małgorzata Wiweger, biographical note

Head of the Zebrafish Core Facility at the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences in Poland and obtained PhD at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden in the field of plant development. In 2004 she switched from plants to animal model (zebrafish) and since then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Sheffield (UK), Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden University and ZF-screens in Leiden, The Netherlands. She is interested in proteoglycans regulating embryo development and uses zebrafish as a model for studies on the skeletal development in normal and pathological conditions. Her latest projects focused on skeletal tuberculosis and non-classical aspects of multiple osteochondromas.

Speaker: Prof. Konrad Ocalewicz (University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Fish as model organisms in biomedical research

Time: Thursday, 4^th of September 2014, 8:30

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Konrad Ocalewicz, biographical note

Konrad Ocalewicz received his M.Sc.in the field of biotechnology in animal breeding from University of Agriculture and Technology in Olsztyn in 1998 and his PhD in agriculture and fisheries from University of Warmia and Mazury in 2002. In 2005, Konrad Ocalewicz completed two years of postodoctoral research in Laboratoire de Genetique des Poissons, INRA, Jouy-en-Josas, France where he studied functionality of L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase gene in fish. HeIn 2006 he was also involved in the international project Control of sex in Atlantic halibut: Towards production of monosex all-female stocks conducted in The University of Nordland (Bodo, Norway) and University in Stirling (UK) (2006). His scientific interests cover a range of issues such as genetic sex determination and evolution of the vertebrate sex chromosomes, development of the isogenic and clonal fish lines, recovery of the fish gene pools through artificially induced androgenesis, genomic organization of the telomeric DNA sequences and role of the telomerase in healing of the radiation-induced Double Strand Breaks. Results of his research on the spontaneous and induced chromosome mutations in the rainbow trout were part of his  D.Sc. dissertation defended at the Department of Biology and Biotechnology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn in 2011. Since 2013, Konrad Ocalewicz has been an assistant professor at the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology, Institute of Oceanography, University of Gdańsk. He also serves as an Assistant Editor in the Journal of Fish Biology, the official journal of The Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI).

Speaker: Prof. Sylwia Mrozowska (University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Public Understanding of Biotechnology

Time: Friday, 5^th of September 2014, 8:30 (gr. A), 10:45 (gr. B)

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Sylwia Mrozowska, biographical note

Associate professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Gdansk and the head of the post-graduate studies in the field of “Civic activation of local communities in the European Union”. She is the principal investigator and coordinator of national and international projects (the National Center for Research and Development (NCBR), the Jean Monnet Programme, the Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme, the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy) and the author of publications dealing with the issues of lobbing, strategies, democratic engagement, social participation, civic society, public understanding of technology. Currently, her work focuses on the development of the social communication model in the scope of new nuclear technologies (strategic research project NCBR).

In 2013 Sylwia Mrozowska became a founding member of the Polish Society of Technology Assessment.

Speaker: Prof. Barbara Kijewska (University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Public Understanding of Biotechnology

Time: Friday, 5^th of September 2014, 8:30 (gr. A), 10:45 (gr. B)

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Barbara Kijewska, biographical note

Political scientist and an associate professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Gdansk. She has been involved as a co-investigator in national and international research projects including the Jean Monet Programme (the European Commission), a strategic research project of the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) “Technologies supporting the development of safe nuclear energy”, “Public Understanding of Technology” (University of Gdansk). In particular, she is interested in studies regarding the understanding of technologies and mass media coverage of science and technology.

Speaker: Prof. Tomasz Besta (University of Gdansk, Poland)

Talk: Public Understanding of Biotechnology

Time: Friday, 5^th of September 2014, 8:30 (gr. A), 10:45 (gr. B)

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2014, OW Syrenka, Stegna

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Tomasz Besta, biographical note

Social psychologist and an associate professor at the University of Gdansk, Institute of Psychology. He obtained his PhD in 2010 from the Polish Academy of Science and since then has been involved as a principal investigator or main researcher in national and international research projects (granted by, for example, the Polish National Science Center, the European Commission Jean Monet Programme and Norway Grants in the Polish-Norwegian Research Programme). His main research area is social and personality psychology; he analyzes the mechanisms of intergroup relations, dynamics of social identities, and the consequences of the need for certainty and predictability. Recently, he has been involved in research into public understanding of technology and human cognitive distortions related to the protection of world-views and beliefs. He is also an ad-hoc reviewer in national and international journals and one of the editors of the Current Issues in Personality Psychology.

Speaker: Prof. Wiesław Babik (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)

Talk: History of divergence and gene flow in hybridizing newts

Time: Sunday 14^th July 2013, 13:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Wiesław Babik, biographical note

Wiesław Babik is an associate professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He received his PhD in 2004, and worked as a postdoc in the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Halle (Germany) and the Imperial College of London. He uses information from contemporary DNA sequences to infer history of populations. In particular he is interested in the causes, demography and the age of intraspecific differentiation, as well as in studying the extent of gene flow between diverging populations. He also studies variation of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes in natural populations, with special emphasis on the effects of natural selection and genetic drift on the patterns of variation at the molecular level. He is an associate editor of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Speaker: Prof. Angel Herráez (Alcalá University, Madrid, Spain)

Workshop: In Silico practical: "Molecular evolution illustrated using protein structure"

Time: Saturday 13^th July 2013, 11:25

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Angel Herráez, biographical note

Angel Herráez holds a degree (BSc + MSc, 1985) in Chemistry from University of Valladolid, Spain. He followed his doctorate studies in the University of Alcalá, where he got the PhD degree in Biochemistry in 1990. He then spent one year as post-doc in the MRC Clinical Research Centre at Harrow, U.K. After that, he established back in the University of Alcalá as assistant professor, then associate professor, and finally (1997) in a tenured position as lecturer/associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology.

Angel Herráez’s research activity started on differentiation markers, with particular focus on membrane proteins. This evolved into studies of cell surface modification aimed at drug carrier systems and the process of blood cell removal from circulation as a possible target. His major research interest has been on structure of biomolecules and protein properties. Along time, he started to get involved in the development of materials to support teaching and learning, particularly in using the technological developments in computerised tools. He has developed some expertise in bioinformatics, mainly on (bio)molecular structure visualisation. While maintaining a collaboration with colleagues in the field of mechanisms of action of antitumour agents, his interest and dedication has been increasingly devoted to the facilitation of learning and the development of interactive resources for both instructors and students. He is also collaborating with a research group at Universidad Complutense in Madrid who works on nutritional epidemiology and health promotion.

Fruit of his activity in the field of education, Angel Herráez has developed a website, http://biomodel.uah.es, where he builds all his materials and offers them openly and free to the community. Since the year 2000, he is member of a joint effort to share educational materials in Spanish, BioROM, which has been publishing a CD-ROM nearly every year between 2001 and 2010 and stays available and updated in the website www.biorom.uma.es and a few mirror sites.

On 2001 Angel Herráez, together with Prof. José Luque, published a book in Spanish on Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering (Harcourt/Elsevier, ISBN 978-84-8174505-4) which has been successfully accepted both as a textbook and as a reference for professionals in diverse areas where the molecular concepts and techniques are increasingly needed. The second edition of this book, now authored only by Angel, was released in 2012 (Elsevier, ISBN 978-84-8086-647-7).

Since January 2007 Angel Herráez is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. In the period 2008-2012 he acted as coordinator of the Education Group of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM). As such, he led some workshops and courses associated to the yearly congresses of SEBBM. Among them, he organised the “2010 Workshop on Biochemistry Education: Assessment Strategies in Protein Structure”, an IUBMB-sponsored Educational Activity with an international audience. He was also in the Organising Committee of the 22nd IUBMB / 37th FEBS Congress (Sevilla, 2012) responsible for coordinating the educational activities during the congress together with IUBMB and FEBS Education Committees.

Angel is a member of the Education Committee of FEBS since January 2012.

Speaker: Prof. Ryszard Korona (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland)

Talk: Evolution under failed selection

Time: Sunday 14^th July 2013, 9:00

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Ryszard Korona, biographical note

Ryszard Korona is a professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. His PhD was on competitive behavior of beetles, post-doctoral training on co-evolution of bacteria-phage systems. For some fifteen years uses the budding yeast as an experimental organism in the study of evolutionary genetics and genomics. His research projects concentrate on: genetic determinants of major components of fitness, such as rate of growth and survival, stress resistance; spontaneous mutations, their rate of origin, selective value, dominance status, genetic interactions; molecular mechanisms of phenotypic buffering of mutational damage; experimental evolution of laboratory of microorganisms.

Speaker: Grzegorz Kudla, PhD (MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh, Scotland)

Talk: Synonymous but not the same: causes and consequences of codon bias

Time: Sunday 14^th July 2013, 10:15

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Grzegorz Kudla, biographical note

Grzegorz Kudla is a group leader at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland. After receiving his doctorate in the Maciej Zylicz lab, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Warsaw, Poland, he worked as a postdoc with Joshua Plotkin at Harvard University and with David Tollervey at the University of Edinburgh, to study the influence of codon bias on gene expression. He is currently developing experimental and bioinformatic tools to study regulation of gene expression, protein-RNA interactions, and RNA-RNA interactions. Since 2008 he has served as Academic Editor of the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Speaker: Jean-Luc Lebrun, Writer and Trainer of Scientists in communication skills

Workshop: Grant writing

Time: Monday 15^th July, Tuesday 16^th July 2013

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Jean-Luc Lebrun, biographical note

Jean-Luc Lebrun has managed research programs while working at Apple Computer in its Advanced Technology Research group for over ten years. He subsequently invested his energy in the commercialization of research at Kent Ridge Digital Labs, a Singapore-based IT lab. He now leaves in San Jose California.

For the past twelve years, Jean-Luc Lebrun has been conducting courses on grant writing, scientific writing, and scientific presentation for more than three thousand scientists, researchers, clinicians, and doctoral students in South East Asia and Europe. He was recently in Krakow and Warsaw giving seminars on scientific writing for the Foundation for Polish Science. He willingly agreed to return to Poland, a country he appreciates, and share with the participants to the summer school of Biotechnology his practical knowledge on grant writing.

He is an author of three books on scientific writing and scientific presentations: "Scientific Writing 2.0 - a reader and writer's guide"; "When the scientist presents" (Both published by World Scientific Publishing Inc) and "Guide Pratique de rédaction scientifique"(published by EDP - éditions de Physique).

He is also co-designer of a computer program to assess the quality of a scientific paper prior to publication (SWAN - freely accessible online at http://cs.joensuu.fi/swan/). Team Members: Jean-Luc Lebrun, Tuomo Kakkonen, Tomi Kinnunen, Henri Leisma, Ernest Arendarenko.
SWAN is a Java application that takes a typical scientific paper (not a review paper) and analyses it to detect writing problems: lack of structure, lack of fluidity, lack of clarity, lack of focus (among others). It does so with the help of the writer who answers a few questions prior to automatic analysis. It delivers an extensive diagnostic report suggesting ways to improve the paper.

Speaker: Prof. Jarosław Marszałek (Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG, Poland)

Talk: Evolution from Modern to Functional Synthesis

Time: Saturday 13^th July 2013, 9:20

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Jarosław Marszałek, biographical note

Jaroslaw Marszalek is Tenured Professor at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of University of Gdansk and Medical University of Gdansk. He leads Laboratory of Evolutionary Biochemistry. The main focus of his research is the role of molecular chaperones of Hsp70 system in essential mitochondrial processes such as biogenesis of iron-sulfur clusters containing proteins and maintenance and propagation of mitochondrial genomes. He studies the role of Hsp70s in these processes from functional, structural and evolutionary perspective. He teaches Molecular Evolution. Prof. Marszalek is also a Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

Speaker: Prof. Juli Peretó (Valencia University, Spain)

Talk: Discussing on the origin of life as an educational tool in biochemistry

Time: Saturday 13^th July 2013, 10:25

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Juli Peretó, biographical note

Juli Peretó is Tenured Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and researcher at the Evolutionary Genetics Unit, Cavanilles Institute for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, University of València. His research interests include the evolution of metabolism, the minimal genome concept, and the history of ideas on the natural origin and the artificial synthesis of life. He teaches metabolism in an evolutionary context to biologists, biochemists and biotechnologists. Currently coordinates a consortium of eight European universities in the Erasmus IP course Origin, Evolution and Future of the Biosphere. He was formerly Secretary of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL-The International Astrobiology Society) and has been elected as Second Vice President of ISSOL for the term 2011-2014. His most recent book, coauthored with A. Moya, is “Simbiosis: seres que evolucionan juntos” (Síntesis, Madrid, 2011).

Speaker: Prof. Dan Tawfik (Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel)

Talk: Laboratory molecular evolution

Time: Saturday 13^th July 2013, 9:40

Talk: Protein strcuture-function in the light of molecular evolution

Time: Sunday 14^th July 2013, 11:45

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lectures during Biotechnology Summer School

Dan Tawfik, biographical note

Born in Jerusalem, Prof. Tawfik received a B.Sc. in chemistry and biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1988, and an M.Sc. in biotechnology in1990. He did his doctoral work at the Weizmann Institute under the supervision of Profs. Zelig Eshhar and Michael Sela, and was granted a Ph.D. in 1995 on the basis of his thesis: “Towards Antibody-Mediated Peptide Hydrolysis.”

In 1996, Prof. Tawfik completed two years of postdoctoral research under Prof. Alan Fersht, at Cambridge University and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering (UK). From 1997 to 2001, he held the position of senior research fellow at Sidney Sussex College, as well as at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering, where he was appointed group leader in chemical biology in 1999. Prof. Tawfik joined the staff of the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science in thespring of 2001, where he serves now as full Professor. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Sir Charles Clore Prize, the Weizmann Institute’s highest honor for a newly-appointed senior scientist, the Wolgin Prize, and the Haim Weizmann Prize by the City of Tel-Aviv, and the EMBO membership. He entered the field of protein evolution through his interest in enzyme engineering, when he realized that unraveling the mysteries of protein evolution is a charming intellectual endeavor and a powerful way of facilitating protein engineering. Research in the Tawfik laboratory integrates protein science, and chemical and evolutionary biology. Enzymes ranging from hydrolases to DNA methyltransferases are being studied, while addressing both the applicative and fundamental aspects of protein evolution. Proteins present a dichotomy. They are highly robust and remarkably proficient and specific. They can, nonetheless, rapidly change and adopt new structures and functions, as manifested in the rapid emergence of resistance in plants, insects, and bacteria, or of herbicide and pesticide degrading enzymes.

Speaker: Rafał Zieliński, PhD (University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, USA)

Workshop: Grant writing

Time: Monday 15^th July, Tuesday 16^th July 2013

Venue: Biotechnology Summer School 2013, Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24

Category: Invited lecture during Biotechnology Summer School

Rafał Zieliński, biographical note

Dr. Rafal Zielinski holds a position at the Department of Experimental Therapeutics, University of Texas, MDAnderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He graduated from Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, where he also obtained his PhD. Dr. Zielinski received extensive postdoctoral training at National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Radiation Oncology Branch, Bethesda MD and Department of Experimental Therapeutics UT, MDAnderson Cancer Center where recently, he was promoted to Research Scientist. His scientific interest is focused on development of new therapies targeting HER2 and oncogenic transcription factors: STAT3, STAT5 and HIF-1a. Dr. Zielinski is an author and co-author of more than twenty peer-reviewed publications. As a Scientist in academic institution, Dr. Zielinski is actively involved in application for research support. His experience involves multiple application for federal (NIH, DOD, SPORE) as well as private foundation grants. Dr. Zielinski also served as reviewer of multiple scientific proposals.

Speaker: prof. dr hab. czł. koresp. PAN Włodzimierz Krzyżosiak (Instytut Biochemii Organicznej PAN)

Talk: Patologiczne ekspansje mikrosatelitów – rola RNA w patogenezie i terapii

Time: December 2, 2014, 12:00

Venue: Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology, Kładki 24, lecture hall B

Category: Invited lecture during Academy Open Ceremony at IFB

Włodzimierz Krzyżosiak, notka biograficzna

Profesor Włodzimierz Krzyżosiak jest kierownikiem Zakładu Biomedycyny Molekularnej w Instytucie Chemii Bioorganicznej PAN w Poznaniu. Jego droga naukowa wiodła od chemii strukturalnej kwasów nukleinowych, poprzez biologię i genetykę molekularną oraz genetykę nowotworów do medycyny molekularnej. Przez pięć lat pracował zagranicą w placówkach badawczych Anglii, Francji, USA i Japonii.

W ostatnich kilkunastu latach Jego aktywność naukowa skupiała się na poznawaniu roli RNA w patogenezie chorób neurologicznych człowieka wywoływanych ekspansją sekwencji mikrosatelitarnych oraz na poszukiwaniu nowych metod eksperymentalnej terapii w tej grupie chorób. Badał również proces biogenezy cząsteczek mikroRNA, zaburzenia ich funkcji w chorobach mikrosatelitarnych oraz ulepszał narzędzia technologii interferencji RNA dla potrzeb terapii.

Do wcześniejszych osiągnięć naukowych profesora Krzyżosiaka należy opracowanie nowej metody badania struktury RNA w roztworze z wykorzystaniem właściwości jonów metali oraz rekonstytucja funkcjonalnego rybosomu z naturalnych białek i syntetycznego rRNA. Jego nowsze osiągnięcia to stworzenie strukturalnych podstaw do badań roli RNA w patogenezie chorób mikrosatelitarnych, stwierdzenie udziału toksycznego RNA w patomechanizmie choroby Huntintona i opracowanie nowego podejścia terapeutycznego dla tej choroby z wykorzystaniem cząsteczek siRNA działających jak mikroRNA.

Wyniki badań prowadzonych przez profesora Krzyżosiaka zostały trzykrotnie wyróżnione Nagrodą Polskiego Towarzystwa Biochemicznego im. Jakuba Parnasa za najlepszą pracę eksperymentalną wykonaną w polskim laboratorium. W roku 2004 został członkiem korespondentem PAN, w 2007 laureatem Nagrody FNP, a w 2013 odznaczony Krzyżem Oficerskim Orderu Odrodzenia Polski.