News

2009-11-09 Bioinformatics appreciated

Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) granted an award in the field of natural and medical sciences to Prof. Andrzej Kolinski for his research on innovative methods predicting 3D protein structures.

The novel technique finds application in predicting protein structures, dynamics and thermodynamics. Innovative approach is based on a combination of very efficient mesoscopic models with classic molecular mechanics, what in result enables construction of exact structures at the atomic level.
The method could be also potentially applied further in computer-supported design of drugs, which would target not only single proteins but also entire protein complexes.

FNP reward is granted to distinctive scientists who have had important input in civilization progress of the country in the period of the last four years.

Prof. Kolinski underlined significance of Polish achievements in the field of molecular modeling. One of the impressing success occurred in 2006 during the international contest - CASP (Critical Assessment of techniques for protein Structure Prediction), when three Polish teams were classified as one of the best. Thus, there is high potential in Polish bioinformatics, says Professor.



Andrzej Koliski is a chemist, who gained his Professor title at Warsaw University, Chemistry department in 1989. He also held several professorships at universities and research institutions in United States in the period of 1985-2003.
Professor is an author and co-author of over 190 scientific publications. He is also a reviewer for such leading magazines as Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences USA, Journal of Molecular Biology, Biophysical Journal, Bioinformatics , and others.
He leads his Laboratory of Theory of Biopolymers at Warsaw University since 1998.

Magdalena Zychlinska-Jackiewicz