POLONEZ BIS for MMRI PAS
September - the World Alzheimer's Month – is dedicated to raising awareness of this difficult and severe neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of people around the world. We would like to express our support and solidarity to all patients, families and caregivers who face the challenges of Alzheimer's disease every day. We are proud that through research conducted at our Institute we can contribute to the fight against Alzheimer's disease.
We are pleased to announce that Mossakowski Medical Research Institute was awarded funding in the NCN (National Science Centre) POLONEZ BIS 3 competition for the implementation of the research project entitled
"Study of the regenerative potential of Stem Cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous teeth (SHED) in Alzheimer’s disease”.
The Principal Investigator of this project Leila Elyasi, PhD (Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Iran) will carry the project at MMRI PAS under the supervision of Michalina Wężyk, PhD from the Department of Neurogenetics and Functional Genomics of our Institute.
Congratulations and best wishes!
POLONEZ BIS 3 has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement.
Horizon Pathfinder at MMRI PAS
We are proud and happy to announce that our scientists from the Laboratory of Immunology will participate in the European Horizon Pathfinder project
"Bottom-up manufacturing of artificial anti-tumor T cells".
In this project Mossakowski Medical Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences is one of the partners in a consortium consisted of: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) - Coordinator and Fondazione Toscana Life Sciences (Italy) - Partner and Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen (Netherlands) - Partner.
The research conducted at MMRI PAS will be coordinated by Małgorzata Firczuk PhD, DSc and Magdalena Winiarska PhD, DSc.
Congratulations to all members of the international project team!
About the project:
“Tumor-targeting T cells with engineered chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), generated from a patient's own T cells, are approved for some blood cancers. However, challenges remain due to cost, effectiveness, and safety concerns. In our Pathfinder project, we'll create artificial T cells (ArTCell) that imitate T cell therapy but are safer, better, and more affordable. ArTCells, designed in Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs), will replicate vital T cell functions: recognizing tumors and killing them. We'll test ArTCells in labs and mice to confirm their ability to target and destroy tumors, comparing them to state-of-the-art CAR-T cells. ArTCells could overcome existing barriers in cell therapies, offering broader use without being deactivated by tumors.”
Congratulations - Paulina Rybkowska
Congratulations to our PhD student from the Translational Platform for Regenerative Medicine
Ms Paulina Rybkowska
a laureate of the BioLAB Program for the academic year 2023-24 who will complete a scientific internship at the University of Virginia.
The Program's partner is the Polish-US Fulbright Commission.
The BioLAB program is a one-year internship for students of biological and chemical, biophysical and medical sciences (biology, biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, biotechnology, chemistry, physics, pharmacy, medicine, etc.) at four American scientific institutions: University of Virginia, University of Chicago, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, and UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The success of our PhD Students
We are happy to announce the success of our PhD Students!
Klaudia Radoszkiewicz from the Translational Platform for Regenerative Medicine
and Martyna Podgajna from the Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Neurodegeneration
won the second and third place (respectively) in this year's edition of the competition
of the Polish Neuroscience Society "Young Investigator Award 2023".
Both ladies will present their scientific achievements on September 22
during the 16th Polish Neuroscience Society Congress in Toruń,
in the "Young Investigator Award" session.
Please accept our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for future success!
Seminar - prof. Dariusz C. Gorecki
Prof. Dariusz C. Gorecki MD, PhD
Professor of Molecular MedicineFulbright AlumnusSchool of Pharmacy and Biomedical SciencesUniversity of Portsmouth, UK
"DMD gene - not just a muscle problem"
DMD, the largest human gene known, encodes dystrophins. Its mutations cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a debilitating and incurable neuromuscular disorder. Oddly, although dystrophin mRNA has been found outside muscles and brain, it was disregarded as “illegitimate transcription”. Contrary to this, we have recently demonstrated that DMD is a housekeeping gene expressed across all human tissues. Moreover, we uncovered a novel link between this gene and malignancy: DMD is downregulated across a spectrum of common cancers of various histological origins and the low dystrophin expression correlates with reduced patients’ survival. We currently investigate the mechanism of this increased tumour aggressiveness using gene editing, and our novel data will be presented. Studies into the role of DMD in malignancies may lead to its exploitation in monitoring progression and treatment. Furthermore, loss of DMD gene expression affects early embryogenesis, and the dystrophic pathway alterations shared between development and tumorigenesis will be discussed. Findings that the DMD gene has a role in processes as vital as development and malignancy expand the growing evidence of its significance beyond dystrophic muscles. This role must be understood if we want to find effective therapies for pathologies caused by DMD mutations. Currently pursued treatments for Duchenne MD focussed on dystrophin re-expression are fraught with problems.
