3^rd Interdisciplinary
FNP Conference

Head of the Laboratory of Emotions Neurobiology at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She completed her Master’s studies in biology and psychology at the University of Warsaw in 2001, and was awarded a PhD degree in neurobiology at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, the Polish Academy of Sciences. After that, she completed two-year postdoctoral research training at the University of Michigan, USA. She received her post-doctoral degree in 2013. She is a holder of scholarships funded by the Foundation for Polish Science (for the KOLUMB programme in 2006 and REINTEGRATIONS/HOMING in 2008), by the Minister of Science and Higher Education and by Academia Europea. In 2016 she was awarded a prestigious grant from the European Research Council. In 2018 she became a new member of the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence, a renowned organisation affiliating junior researchers dealing with brain research, sponsored by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and the Kavli Foundation. In 2018 she also obtained – together with prof. Leszek Kaczmarek – a grant from FNP’s International Research Agendas programme.

The main scientific interests of dr. Knapska include the brain-based foundations of emotion, in particular the mechanisms of positive and negative emotions communicated in the social context. Dysfunctions in sending and receiving emotion-related information are the basis of, among others, autism spectrum disorders.

Dominika Kwasnicka, PhD, studied Psychology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and received her Masters in Public Health and Health Services Research and PhD in Health Psychology and Behavioural Medicine from the Newcastle University, England. In 2016 she received a prestigious award from the European Health Psychology Society for the most innovative doctoral dissertation in Health Psychology, she is due to receive Early Career Researcher Award from the same society this year for her work on theory development and health promotion intervention design. Since 2015, Dominika worked as a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. Starting in March 2019, she will continue her research at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Wrocław within her HOMING project financed by the Foundation for Polish Science.

Daniel Gryko graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw. He obtained his PhD at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he also obtained his postdoctoral degree at the age of 33. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at North Carolina State University in the United States in 1998-2000. He has worked as a visiting professor at the University of Burgundy in France and as a visiting researcher at Texas State University in Austin. He received the title of full professor in 2008. Meanwhile, he also worked at the Warsaw University of Technology for five years. Today he heads a research group at the PAS Institute of Organic Chemistry. Although he takes part in many international projects, he has consistently carried out his research in Poland. Young scientists from other countries come here to work with him.

His great scientific achievements have won him an award from the Society of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines (2008), the Prize of the Minister of Science and Higher Education (2012), the Wojciech Świętosławski Prize awarded by the Polish Chemical Society (2013). He was a beneficiary of the Foundation for Polish Science’s MISTRZ academic grant for professors (2013). In addition, he has twice received a grant in the FNP’s TEAM programme. In 2017 he was honoured with the Foundation for Polish Science Prize in the chemical and material sciences for the development of an original method for synthesis and characterization of porphyrinoids.

His research interests are focused on the synthesis of various porphyrinoids and other functional dyes as well as on two-photon absorption, artificial photosynthesis and excited-state intramolecular proton transfer.

A biologist - geneticist, medical doctor and manager of innovation. She believes that genetic diagnostics is one of the most important factors that tailor the personalized medicine of the 21st century.

Anna Wójcicka graduated from the Medical University of Warsaw, the University of Warsaw and the Warsaw School of Economics. She was an intern at the Medical Genetics Department of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Molecular Endocrinology Laboratory, Imperial College London, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ohio State University, Columbus (USA). She is the author of a range of scientific publications on cancer genetics and a manager of research projects in this field.

She was granted a Very Important Polish Innovator title by the Polish Emblem Foundation „Poland Now”, as well as a scholarship of the Minister of Higher Education for outstanding scientists. In 2017, she received the title of Businesswoman of the Year, Woman in New Technologies. She is a laureate of the Foundation for Polish Science’s IMPULS and TEAM-TECH programmes.

Sebastian Glatt studied Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Vienna. During his PhD thesis at the pharmaceutical industry, he identified and characterized G-protein coupled receptors which are specifically up-regulated in certain cancer types. In 2008, he was awarded an interdisciplinary postdoc fellowship, which allowed him to join the Structural and Computational unit at EMBL Heidelberg. During this time, he transformed from a pure cell biologist into a protein biochemist, crystallographer and electron microscopist. Since September 2015 he leads his own independent Max Planck Research Group hosted by the Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He established and maintains very fruitful scientific collaborations with labs in Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Australia. He has published numerous research papers in highly prestigious scientific journals, including Nature Communications, Nature Structural Molecular Biology, Genes & Dev, Nature and Cell. Most recently, he received several prestigious grants, including the EMBO Installation Grant, the FIRST TEAM and TEAM-TECH Core Facility grants from the Foundation for Polish Science. He is not only leading an international research team of more than 20 young scientists, but he is also deputy director of science at MCB and head of the “National Cryo-EM facility“ at the Solaris synchrotron in Kraków.

His career and scientific vision are clearly dominated by interdisciplinary and collaborative research projects, which are driven by his curiosity for a deeper mechanistic understanding of fundamental biological processes. In particular, his group is interested in the detailed structural and functional characterization of tRNA modification enzymes and other macromolecular complexes involved in the control of protein synthesis. These cellular mechanisms are not only highly conserved, vaguely characterized and extremely complex, but are also of high clinical relevance and importance. In detail, alterations of these modifications cascades lead to the onset of various neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and intellectual disabilities. The main experimental techniques include molecular biology, protein/RNA biochemistry, x-ray crystallography, electron microscopy and cell biology.

She is a Physics graduate from the Nicolaus Copernicus University, where she focused her research on developing new SOCT measurement methods. She has designed and constructed some of the optomechanical components of a prototypical SOCT machine, and was actively involved in its implementation. The SOCT Copernicus machine took the market by storm, capturing a global market share of 20 percent in its first year of sale. Furthermore, she has designed an SOCT machine to examine works of art. The machine has been used to examine paintings by Van Gogh, da Vinci, Rubens and many others.

Anna Szkulmowska has co-authored more than 50 papers in reputable journals, with more than 1,000 citations (Google Scholar), two patents (US, JP), and four patent applications (EPO). She has received multiple scholarships from the Foundation for Polish Science, as well as many other recognitions and distinctions for her work. In 2009 she became interested in academic entrepreneurship and established and managed the faculty-based Aleksander Jabłoński Foundation. Two years later, she initiated the establishment of AM2M, a company providing commercial R&D services. In 2012 Szkulmowska completed the “Top 500 Innovators – Science Management and Commercialization" programme at Stanford University in California, and in 2018 she graduated from the Leadership Academy for Poland. Currently, she works for AM2M, and is also an innovation broker for the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Informatics at the Nicolaus Copernicus University.

(Moderator: dr hab. Stefan Dziembowski)

As a recipient of an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant, an FNP Welcome Grant and a Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (2006-2007), professor Dziembowski is very well equipped to moderate a round table on writing international grant proposals. The discussion will focus on best practice and draw on its moderator’s considerable experience.

Stefan Dziembowski is a professor at the University of Warsaw. He is interested in theoretical and applied cryptography. Dziembowski received an MSc degree in computer science in 1996 from the University of Warsaw, and a PhD degree in computer science in 2001 from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He was a post-doc at the ETH Zurich, CNR Pisa and the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where he joined the faculty in 2008. In 2010 he moved to the University of Warsaw where he leads the Cryptography and Data Security Group.

His papers appeared at leading computer science conferences (FOCS, STOC, CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, TCC, CT-RSA, and LICS), and journals (Journal of Cryptology and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Journal of the ACM, Communications of the ACM). He also served as a PC member of several international conferences, including CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC), and the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP). He served as the general chair of the Twelfth Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC'15), and as a PC co-chair of TCC'18.

He is a recipient of an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant, an FNP Welcome grant, FNP Team grant, and a Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (2006-2007). He is a co-author of two papers that won the Best Paper Awards (on Eurocrypt 2014 and on IEEE S&P 2014).

(Moderator: prof. Konrad Banaszek)

This round table will focus on international cooperation in science and, in particular, on specific instruments designed to support collaborative research across boundaries. The discussion will combine the perspectives of the scientific community and research funding organisations such as FNP or the National Science Centre.

Prof. Konrad Banaszek is currently the director of the Centre of Quantum Optical Technologies funded by the International Research Agenda Programme operated by the Foundation for Polish Science and hosted by the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw. After receiving a PhD degree from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw in 2000 he held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Rochester (USA) and the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) followed by faculty appointments at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland and the University of Warsaw. He is an author or a co-author of over 100 scientific articles dealing with various aspects of quantum technologies. Over the last decade he coordinated three projects funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and he realized two TEAM projects supported by the Foundation for Polish Science. In addition to his academic appointment at the University of Warsaw he also serves as the scientific coordinator of the QuantERA funding initiative, which groups 32 grant agencies from 26 countries and is coordinated by National Science Centre Poland.

(Moderator: prof. Piotr Garstecki)

During this round table, Professor Piotr Garstecki, together with invited guests, will share his experiences on building bridges between science and business. The discussion will touch on best practices and biggest challenges regarding this type of collaboration. Professor Garstecki, among his other commitments, currently serves as the President of the Board of Scope Fluidics, founded in 2010 at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences with a view to developing microfluidic solutions for medicine. Scope Fluidics a hub for technology start-ups which focuses on global challenges in health to develop diagnostic and med tech solutions. The unit accelerates ideas into products by providing a legal, financial and infrastructural framework, as well as critical know-how resources for projects that can grow into start-ups.

Piotr Garstecki is Full Professor at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Science, in Warsaw, Poland. He also currently leads the Research Group of Microfluidics and Complex Fluids at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Warsaw. The group conducts research on fundamental aspects of the physics of soft matter systems and develops microfluidic tools for chemistry and biology. He coauthored over a hundred scientific publications and multiple patent applications and cofounded two spin-out companies: the above-mentioned Scope Fluidics and Curiosity Diagnostics, both working on the use of microfluidic technologies in medical diagnostics.

(Moderator: prof. Magda Konarska)

As Professor Konarska is currently taking part in a task force organizing PhD schools at the University of Warsaw, elaborated in parallel with similar efforts at many other Polish universities, and she has first-hand experience of specific solutions that work in higher education in the United States, we are proposing that the participants of this round table take a considered look at a question which is of essence for the future of Polish science, i.e. how to improve training of PhDs and post-docs to better prepare them for independent and creative scientific careers. Working out functional solutions that are properly adapted to the specific conditions of the Polish environment must involve a broad spectrum of our research community in order to create a lasting shift from the current system to prepare next generations of Polish scientists for scientific self-sufficiency and excellence.

Magda Konarska is a University of Warsaw Professor; since 2018 she has served as Deputy Director “Regenerative Mechanisms for Health”, International Research Agenda Unit (“ReMedy”) and since 2015 she has been Head of the RNA Biology Laboratory at the Centre for New Technologies at the University of Warsaw. She is also Professor Emeritus of the Rockefeller University in New York, USA, where she spent 26 years as the head of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Lab. She specializes in researching the function of RNA in cellular processes and in particular in the pre-mRNA splicing mechanism. During her scientific career she has worked for such institutions as the Center for Cancer Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA and the Rockefeller University in New York.

(Moderator: prof. Marek Żukowski)

Although few would argue that free access to research findings would serve science and society, in practical terms open access proves controversial and not without considerable flaws. Numerous questions are raised concerning the practice, including who should bear the actual costs of publication, who draws profits from it, what kinds of barriers are torn down thanks to it and what new barriers, in turn, arise as a consequence, and, finally, how all this affects the academic integrity of the scientific community. This round table discussion will examine open access practices and their consequences and invite participants to share their thoughts.

A quantum physicist and a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at the University of Gdańsk, Professor Marek Żukowski has been affiliated with that institution for his entire career. He is currently the director of the International Centre for Theory of Quantum Technologies (FNP/IRAP) at the University of Gdańsk and an editor of Physical Review A (American Physical Society). He has served as a visiting professor at numerous foreign institutions, including the University of Innsbruck, Tsinghua University in Beijing, University of Science and Technology of China, and University of Vienna. For eight years he was a member of the Scientific Council of the National Science Centre. He is a laureate of numerous FNP programmes such as MISTRZ, TEAM, and COPERNICUS and now IRAP. In 2013 he was awarded the Foundation for Polish Science Prize, for his works in multiphoton quantum interferometry.

(Moderator: dr hab. Stefan Dziembowski)

Stefan Dziembowski is a professor at the University of Warsaw. He is interested in theoretical and applied cryptography. Dziembowski received an MSc degree in computer science in 1996 from the University of Warsaw, and a PhD degree in computer science in 2001 from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He was a post-doc at the ETH Zurich, CNR Pisa and the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where he joined the faculty in 2008. In 2010 he moved to the University of Warsaw where he leads the Cryptography and Data Security Group.

His papers appeared at leading computer science conferences (FOCS, STOC, CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, IEEE S&P, ACM CCS, TCC, CT-RSA, and LICS), and journals (Journal of Cryptology and IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Journal of the ACM, Communications of the ACM). He also served as a PC member of several international conferences, including CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, ASIACRYPT, Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC), and the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP). He served as the general chair of the Twelfth Theory of Cryptography Conference (TCC'15), and as a PC co-chair of TCC'18.

He is a recipient of an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant, an FNP Welcome grant, FNP Team grant, and a Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship (2006-2007). He is a co-author of two papers that won the Best Paper Awards (on Eurocrypt 2014 and on IEEE S&P 2014).

(Moderator: prof. Konrad Banaszek)

Prof. Konrad Banaszek is currently the director of the Centre of Quantum Optical Technologies funded by the International Research Agenda Programme operated by the Foundation for Polish Science and hosted by the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw. After receiving a PhD degree from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw in 2000 he held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Rochester (USA) and the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) followed by faculty appointments at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland and the University of Warsaw. He is an author or a co-author of over 100 scientific articles dealing with various aspects of quantum technologies. Over the last decade he coordinated three projects funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union and he realized two TEAM projects supported by the Foundation for Polish Science. In addition to his academic appointment at the University of Warsaw he also serves as the scientific coordinator of the QuantERA funding initiative, which groups 32 grant agencies from 26 countries and is coordinated by National Science Centre Poland.

(Moderator: prof. Piotr Garstecki)

Piotr Garstecki is Full Professor at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Science, in Warsaw, Poland. He also currently leads the Research Group of Microfluidics and Complex Fluids at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Warsaw. The group conducts research on fundamental aspects of the physics of soft matter systems and develops microfluidic tools for chemistry and biology. He coauthored over a hundred scientific publications and multiple patent applications and cofounded two spin-out companies: the above-mentioned Scope Fluidics and Curiosity Diagnostics, both working on the use of microfluidic technologies in medical diagnostics.

(Moderator: prof. Magda Konarska)

Magda Konarska is a University of Warsaw Professor; since 2018 she has served as Deputy Director “Regenerative Mechanisms for Health”, International Research Agenda Unit (“ReMedy”) and since 2015 she has been Head of the RNA Biology Laboratory at the Centre for New Technologies at the University of Warsaw. She is also Professor Emeritus of the Rockefeller University in New York, USA, where she spent 26 years as the head of the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Lab. She specializes in researching the function of RNA in cellular processes and in particular in the pre-mRNA splicing mechanism. During her scientific career she has worked for such institutions as the Center for Cancer Research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA and the Rockefeller University in New York.

(Moderator: prof. Marek Żukowski)

A quantum physicist and a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at the University of Gdańsk, Professor Marek Żukowski has been affiliated with that institution for his entire career. He is currently the director of the International Centre for Theory of Quantum Technologies (FNP/IRAP) at the University of Gdańsk and an editor of Physical Review A (American Physical Society). He has served as a visiting professor at numerous foreign institutions, including the University of Innsbruck, Tsinghua University in Beijing, University of Science and Technology of China, and University of Vienna. For eight years he was a member of the Scientific Council of the National Science Centre. He is a laureate of numerous FNP programmes such as MISTRZ, TEAM, and COPERNICUS and now IRAP. In 2013 he was awarded the Foundation for Polish Science Prize, for his works in multiphoton quantum interferometry.

Maria has degrees in biology and biogeochemistry. She pursued a PhD in Earth Sciences as a Bill and Melinda Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge and has since moved on to policy work at, among others, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the British Embassy in Poland. She is currently the Lead for Programme Development as part of the International Research Agendas Programme at the Foundation for Polish Science.

Member of the FNP Alfa team - a subsidiary of the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), focused on constructing linkages between basic research and venture capital. In this role, the focal aim is to identify and articulate start-up growth potential and inherent challenges in research commercialization and tech transfer. Experienced Senior Researcher with a demonstrated history of (15+ years) working in the biotech sector. Strong research background in Life Science and STEM sectors. Expertise in applied biotechnology and molecular medicine technology transfer pipeline.

A biochemist specialized in RNA biology, studying complex processes in bacterial cells. Currently, a Principal Investigator in a study of translation regulation and specialized ribosomes in Bacillus subtilis, funded by the Foundation for Polish Science and EMBO Installation Grant.

She is interested in prokaryotic translation, especially the bacterial ribosome structure and function. During PhD studies at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, she investigated mechanisms of protein synthesis inhibition by various antibiotics. Then, she was awarded an AXA Research Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the role of EF-P translational elongation factor. In 2015, she started work in the laboratory of Prof. Jeff Errington at Newcastle University (UK) to investigate sporulation in Bacillus subtilis. She uses Bacillus subtilis as a model to study gene expression regulation at the translational level. In 2018, she was awarded a fellowship for young researchers from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland). She has collaborated with a Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Tom Steitz. She is an author of 30 international peer-reviewed research papers.

After obtaining an inderdisciplinary PhD in 2009, he spent multiple years as a postdoc at Oxford University in Departments of Biochemistry, Physics and Oncology. From 2017, as an assistant Professor at Department of Physics, Poznan University, he leads a research group focusing on DNA metabolism. Additionally, co-founder and CEO of MNM Diagnostics, initiative helping people use information encoded in their genomes to improve their health.

Michał Zawada, atomic physicist, associate professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University and principal investigator of the ultra-cold matter experimental group at KL FAMO. Among other projects, his group designed and built the first Bose-Einstein condensation setup, created the first ultra-cold molecules, and designed and built the first two optical lattice clocks in Poland. His group reported the most accurate at the time absolute measurement of the 1S0 − 3P0 clock transition in neutral 88Sr, made over a 330 km-long stabilized fibre optic link. His group also develops and operates a dual species HgRb magneto-optical trap. More recently, his group has focused on coordination of the worldwide network looking for positive detection of dark matter with optical atomic clocks, and improving limits on the Higgs-portal coupling between dark scalar particles, topological defects and standard model matter. His group won the 2017 Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Award.

Jacek Plewka, biophysicist and post-doc at Jagiellonian University. His fields of interest are structural characterization of proteins and protein interactions, immunotherapy, small molecule inhibitors, and protein-A chromatography. Currently he is researching potent small molecule inhibitors for receptor-targeted immunotherapy, from protein expression and structural characterization to in-silico screening of compounds libraries to biophysical description of inhibition (HTRF assays, NMR, MST, etc).

Kenji Yamada, cell biologist, group leader at the Małopolska Centre of Biotechnology. His research interests and achievements: Brassicaceae plants have a specific chemical defence known as the mustard oil bomb. Yamada is interested in the cellular and molecular mechanism behind this chemical defence system.

Agata Karska, molecular astrophysicist, group leader of the MA-LAB funded by a FIRST TEAM grant, Vice Dean for Internationalization at the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Informatics at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. She studies chemical and physical processes associated with star and planet formation in our galaxy and beyond. She is most recognized for her work on the role of water vapour in the earliest stages of star formation. She is currently involved in building an interdisciplinary research team with quantum chemists and spectroscopists in order to establish theoretical grounds for studies of complex organic molecules in space.

Maria Górna, molecular and structural biologist, leader of the Structural Biology Group. Her broad interest is in using three-dimensional structures to explain protein function, e.g. molecular mechanisms in RNA metabolism, from viruses and bacteria to humans, and identifying the role of mutations underlying human diseases. She also developed a passion for translation of her research findings into useful inventions through protein engineering and repurposing, for use in diagnosis of infections and development of novel antibiotics. She is a laureate of the EMBO Installation Grant, NCBR LIDER, NCN SONATA, H2020 MSCA-IF and FNP FIRST TEAM programmes and a recipient of the Minister of Science and Higher Education scholarship for outstanding young scientists. Maria serves on the current board of the Marie Curie Alumni Association, funded by the European Commission.

Jędrzej Kaniewski, physicist working on information theory aspects of quantum mechanics at the Centre for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His research goal is to determine which properties of quantum devices can be certified solely from the macroscopic behaviour of the device, without the need to understand the microscopic details behind it. Before coming back to Poland he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Copenhagen.

Wojciech Knap, physicist, graduated from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. For many years he has been associated with the University of Montpellier and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France. As part of the LIA-TERAMIR international lab he has coordinated the activities of the Terahertz Radiation Lab (TeraGaN) at the Institute of High Pressure Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is the author or co-author of more than 400 articles in international specialist scientific journals, and the author of several patents. Prof. Knap’s scientific pursuits cover numerous fields, including absorption and emission of terahertz light by free and trapped carriers in shallow dopant states, heterostructures involving GaN/AlGaN nitrides, plasma excitation in nanotransistors, and terahertz radiation of plasmonic structures.

Marcin Śmiglak, chemist and primary investigator in a TEAM-TECH project. He obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, USA (2007), under the supervision of Prof. Robin D. Rogers. In 2008–2010, Dr Śmiglak was a postdoctoral research associate in Prof. Rogers’ research group at the Center for Green Manufacturing and the Alabama Institute of Manufacturing Excellence at the University of Alabama. In 2010, he took the position of head of production and technology R&D at IoLiTec Ionic Liquid Technologies GmbH in Heilbronn, Germany, and held this position until mid-2012. Since then, he has served as head of the Materials Synthesis Group at the Poznań Science and Technology Park in Poland. In 2017, he received his postdoctoral degree. Prof. Śmiglak’s scientific interest is oriented toward synthesis and innovative applications of ionic liquids, especially in plant protection. He has published over 50 scientific articles, received 6 patents, and managed 9 scientific projects, including a TEAM-TECH project.

Agnieszka Kaczmarczyk, biologist. In 2012, she obtained her PhD after completion of a research programme in the Cell Biology Laboratory at the National University of Ireland Galway. She then completed a postdoctoral position at ISTCT CNRS in Caen, France. The CERVOxy team “Hypoxia, cerebrovascular and tumour pathophysiology” was particularly interested in proposing new therapeutic strategies targeting hypoxia for ischemia and brain tumours, combining multimodal imaging (MRI, PET) and biomarkers for efficacy of treatments. In September 2017, she joined the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology to continue her research career at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. Her research interests are neuroscience, personalized anticancer therapies for brain tumours, drug discovery, and clinical diagnostics.

Izabela Stefanowicz-Pięta received her doctoral degree in physical chemistry and applied nanoengineering from the University of Malaga, Spain, in 2011. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Waterloo, Canada, she joined the spectroscopic and microscopic (STM/AFM) studies of intermolecular interactions group at the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. Working on industrial and academic projects, she has gained unique experience ranging from basic to applied science in the field of environmental and energy-related catalysis. Her research interest is focused on catalysts in molecular level design—tailoring catalyst surface properties and advanced process engineering for given functionalities, value-added production of chemicals from bio-resources, biofuels, electromobility and reduction of emissions from energy sources.

Tomasz P. Wróbel, medical physicist/chemist, leader of a HOMING grant at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków. His research interests are focused on chemical imaging techniques applied to biomedical problems, with a special emphasis on infrared imaging and machine learning in cancer research. He is a recipient of multiple awards and scholarships, both Polish (e.g. Doctus, START FNP, and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education) and international (e.g. Coblentz Society Student Award and William G. Fateley Student Award). After obtaining his PhD in chemistry (supervisor Prof. Małgorzata Barańska, Jagiellonian University), he was awarded a prestigious Beckman Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014–2017) by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Prof. Rohit Bhargava’s group). He is currently working on improving the understanding and diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Anna Sroka-Bartnicka, chemist, is passionate about spectroscopic imaging techniques, and is a project manager in the REINTEGRATION programme funded by FNP and Lider VIII programme funded by NCBiR. After receiving her doctorate, she worked at several outstanding units, including Imperial College London, Stockholm University, and the Medical University of Lublin. Now she has returned to Lublin as a place where she can improve and develop her scientific passions about imaging spectroscopy. Her scientific interest is the application of an interdisciplinary approach using different complementary spectroscopic techniques of vibrational spectroscopy (IR and Raman spectroscopy) and mass spectrometry (MALDI MSI) to study biological materials and biopolymers.