Professor Maciej Żylicz
President and Executive Director
 Born
21 September 1953 in Gdańsk, he studied experimental
physics and biology at the university there. He obtained
his doctoral degree in biochemistry in 1979. After 3 years of post-doc training in the USA, he was qualified
as an assistant professor of molecular biology in 1986. He received professorial rank in 1992. During the years
1980-1999 he was an associate of Gdańsk University: his many posts there included that of a deputy rector
for scientific affairs (1990-1993). In 1993
and 1994 he was visiting professor at the Utah University
Institute of Oncology in the US. Since 1999 he has been
director of the Molecular Biology Department of the
International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology
in Warsaw.
Professor Żylicz specialises in the molecular biology
of heat shock proteins: he was among the first to identify and isolate proteins of this category and to prove their
role in DNA replication. Together with his collaborators
he showed that heat shock proteins are involved in
the protection of other types of proteins, the dissociation
of oligomers and protein aggregates, and in proteolysis.
Since 2000 he has been investigating the role of heat shock proteins in cell transformation.
He is the author of over 80 papers and studies that
have been quoted over 5,000 times by other researchers
world-wide. He has promoted nine Ph.D. holders;
four members of his research team are now professors,
and six associate professors.
Professor Żylicz has been a corresponding member of
the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1994, the European
Molecular Biology Organisation, EMBO (since 2000), and
the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and Academia Europaea
(since 2001).
He is a member of the EMBO Council and was a representative
of Poland in the EMBC and the ESF (Standing Committee
of the Life Sciences).
During the years 1997-2004 Professor Żylicz was first a member and then a chairman
of the Biology, Earth Sciences and Environmental Protection
Group of the State Committee for Scientific Research. In 2000-2001 he was also a Chairman of the Basic Research Section of the Committee.
President
and Executive Director of the Foundation for Polish
Science since September 2005.
e-mail:
|
THE AUTHORITIES OF THE FOUNDATION
