News

The group leaders and post-doctoral researchers of ICRI-BioM participated in the 4th Interdisciplinary FNP conference held in Warsaw during 6-7 October 2022. It was a great opportunity to interact and start collaboration with researchers from other MAB centres and FNP programs. The event comprised various oral/poster presentations and panel discussions. The significance of international cooperation, synergies between the teams, start-ups, the European Union’s ERC grants, and future funding programs of FNP were discussed in detail. The administrative problems faced by the researchers were also discussed. In 4 poster sessions more than 160 posters from all the research centres were presented. The important research themes of ICRI-BioM groups were presented as four posters.

Recently ICRI-BioM hosted two scientists from the Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain; Professor Vicent Moliner and Dr. Katarzyna Świderek. During their stay the options for collaboration within the broad area of computational predictions of specificity and its alteration of mutated enzymes has been discussed.

On June 27, 2022, Prof. Steinbüchel and Prof. Paneth visited the main site of Pietrucha Group at Błaszki, where they meet with CEO Jerzy Pietrucha, R&D Director Dr. Jacek Gralewski, and Chief Technologist Dariusz Ejchman M.Sc. Eng. Possible collaborations in the area of designing new biobased products with controlled biodegradation time were initially explored. Hopefully, this meeting will end-up in a fruitfull cooperation.

On June 24-25, 2022, a meeting between the management of ICRI-BioM and TUL's authorities took place in the guest house of TUL in Konopnica. Discussion started with presentations of research and teaching potentials of the Center, and was followed by discussion on possible ways of collaboration, joint teaching activities at all levels, as well as on the visibility and sustainability of the Center. From the ICRI-BioM's side both Directors, Scientific advisor, and two Principal Investigators participated in the meeting, while from the TUL's side the Rector and two his Vice-rectors, the Chancellor, three current and one former Deans participitated in the meeting and discussions. We enjoyed the very friendly and joyful atmosphere as well as fantastic weather.

In mid of October, ICRI-BioM was awarded with a MINITURA5 grant. The project nr 2021/05/X/ST4/00572 entitled “Stimuli responsive systems based on squalene functionalized with ESIPT dyes” was written by Dr. Franciela Arenhart Soares, a post-doctoral researcher in Professor Alexander Steinbüchel’s group. The project will contribute to the ICRI-BioM budget with more than 40,000 zlotys, with an estimated duration of one year and will be developed at ICRI-BioM facilities held at Technical University of Lodz. ESIPT (excited stated intramolecular proton transfer) dyes are considered privileged scaffolds due to their large range of applications and unique properties such as a sizeable Stokes shift and solid state fluorescence emission in the visible region. Due to the dynamic nature of the proton transfer, the fluorescence emission can be turned on/off by exposure to light. For these reasons, ESIPT dyes are very promising to design responsive materials. The project will encompass to obtain a new family of ESIPT dyes, as well their application in the functionalization important biomolecules like squalene.

A visit at the President Zdanowska's office for the very fruitful discussion of the role of ICRI-BioM International Research Agenda in science in Lodz.

On August, 28 the members of ICRI-BioM and International Scientific Committee met to generate the application to the Teaming call for proposals of the Horizon Europe program.

Wojciech Płonka, Agata Paneth and Piotr Paneth Docking and QSAR of Aminothioureas at the SARS-CoV-2 S-Protein–Human ACE2 Receptor Interface. Molecules 2020, 25, 4645