Jacek Jemielity
Jacek Jemielity has graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw in 1997. He received a Ph.D. degree in 2002 and his habilitation in 2012, both at the same Faculty. He worked at the Department of Biophysics of the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. He also gathered research experience at the Institute of Structural Biology in France and the University of Turku in Finland, among other places. He received a full professorship in 2020.
Professor Jemielity specializes in organic and biological chemistry and the biochemistry of nucleotides and nucleic acids. He is the head of the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw, in which he leads the research group Jemielity Group. Moreover, he co-founded and heads ExploRNA Therapeutics, a spin-off company of the University of Warsaw, in which the technology of chemically modified mRNA is developed and then used in the design of novel therapies. He co-authored 140 publications for top journals, including Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature Communications, Chemical Science, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology and Nucleic Acids Research. These articles were cited more than 3200 times. He is the inventor of solutions protected worldwide by nine patents or patent applications; two of them were bought by BioNTech, four by ExploRNA Therapeutics.
He has been awarded by: FNP Prize Laureate in Chemistry 2021 for developing chemical modifications of mRNA as tools for therapeutic applications and studies on cellular processes – the most prestigious scientific award in Poland (2021); Nomination to the European Inventor Award organized by European Patent office (nomination in research category, 2018); Honorary badge form Prime Minister of Poland “For merits for inventiveness” (2018); President's of Poland Economy Award (research category 2017); Scientific Award for Young Scientists of the “Polityka” Foundation (VIII Edition) (2008); Rector Grzegorz Bialkowski Award from the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw for "Designing and chemical synthesis of mRNA cap analogues and biophysical studies of their interaction with protein factors" (2008); University of Warsaw Rector's awards (2004, 2011, 2018 and 2021).