January 2014 – April 2015 01.2014-04.2015 Director Jacek Kuźnicki
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INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR AND CELL BIOLOGY IN WARSAW Annual Report January 2014 – April 2015 01.2014-04.2015 Director Jacek Kuźnicki Deputy Director for Development Michał Witt Deputy Director for Science Marta Miączyńska Deputy Director for Operations Dorota Makarewicz Deputy Director for Finance Hanna Iwaniukowicz Chaiperson of the International Advisory Board Anna Tramontano Deputy Chairperson of the International Advisory Board Ineke Braakman International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw 4 Ks. Trojdena Street 02-109 Warsaw, Poland Phone (48 22) 59 70 700; Fax (48 22) 59 70 715 [email protected] www.iimcb.gov.pl Edited by Daria Filipek and Agnieszka Wagner-Ziemka Designed by Darek Kondefer (Fabryka Nieskończoności) Photos by: Michał Bazała (pages 73 and 85), Daria Filipek (page 1 group picture and pages 7, 12, 22, 28, 34, 40, 44, 50, 54, 59, 61, 63, 73, 75, 76, 84, 99), Karolina Górecka (cover page and pages 80, 93, 98), Marcin Mizerski (pages 1, 2, 13, 16, 17, 23, 29, 35, 41, 45, 51), Michał Rażew (cover page – bottom photo), Roman Szczepanowski (pages 7, 59, 60, 99), Agata Trojanowska (pages 65 and 96), Magdalena Wiśniewska-Krasińska/archiwum FNP (page 55), Marta Żurańska (page 94) Publication supported by the European Commission under FP7 GA No 316125 and by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education fishmed.iimcb.gov.pl ISBN 978-83-917905-8-8 Directors and International Advisory Board of the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Warsaw 2014-2018 term Jacek Kuźnicki Marta Miączyńska Michał Witt Dorota Makarewicz Hanna Director Deputy Director Deputy Director Deputy Director Iwaniukowicz for Science for Development for Operations Deputy Director for Finance Chairperson: Anna Tramontano Urszula Hibner Institut de Génétique Moléculaire de Montpellier Deputy Chairperson: Ineke Braakman (IGMM), France Secretary: Artur Jarmołowski Artur Jarmołowski Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland Members: Fred van Leuven Department of Human Genetics, Katholieke Nicolaus Blin Institute of Human Genetics, University of Tuebingen, Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Tuebingen, Germany Maciej Nałęcz Director, Division of Basic and Engineering Sciences, Ineke Braakman Department of Cellular Protein Chemistry, Utrecht UNESCO, Paris, France University, Utrecht, The Netherlands Didier Picard Department of Cell Biology, University of Geneva, Thomas Braun Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Geneva, Switzerland Bad Nauheim, Germany Helen Saibil Department of Crystallography, Birkbeck College Bernd Bukau Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg (ZMBH), London, Institute for Structural and Molecular Biology, London, University of Heidelberg, Germany Great Britain (resigned in May 2014) Walter Chazin Department of Chemistry, Vanderbilt University, Piotr Sicinski Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA Nashville, USA Adam Szewczyk Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Ivan Dikič Institute of Biochemistry II, Goethe University Medical Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland School, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Anna Tramontano Medical Faculty, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Witold Filipowicz Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Rome, Italy Basel, Switzerland Alexander Wlodawer Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory, Klaus Hahlbrock Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, USA Köln, Germany Permanent Advisor: Angelo Azzi Tufts University, Boston, USA 1 Directors’ Note Another year has passed – already the sixteenth year in the research team leader, and it is spectacular with regard to the number history of our Institute’s scientific endeavors. Like any year in the of outstanding candidates. In mid-May this year a special session past, it brought the usual mix of many challenges and successful will be held at the Institute, during which four top candidates from achievements as well as some obstacles and unfulfilled hopes. abroad (two men and two women) will face an audience comprising However, as you will learn from the following pages, it may generally the staff of the Institute and members of the International Advisory be summarized as having been very successful. It is with great Board, and deliver presentations of their achievements and research satisfaction that we present you with the current Annual Report plans. The person(s) who is recommended by the Board for the in which we describe last year’s most important events and the position of team leader will then negotiate with the Director the achievements of our staff. terms of his/her employment at the Institute. It is important that the The UN General Assembly declared 2014 the International Year of quality of applicants, their research fields and the financial position Crystallography, under the auspices of UNESCO and the International of the Institute allows us to consider the formation of more than Union of Crystallography. The opening ceremony was held at the one new research team. UNESCO headquarters in Paris and one of those invited was Dr. habil. The only constraint to this are considerations concerning the Marcin Nowotny, Head of the Laboratory of Protein Structure at the available office and lab space. In order to develop and grow, the Institute. Dr. Nowotny was among 8 young talents and delivered Institute must overcome these constraints and move to a new, larger a speech during the Young Crystallographers Session. Not only facility. It has been estimated that a stable institution of an appropriate did he represent our Institute and Poland, but he was also the critical mass will be created only when there are about 15 research representative of the CEE region. To celebrate this success, we decided teams. Nine research teams do not provide enough momentum to on crystallography as the leading theme for the 2014/Q1 2015 report. keep the Institute at the top of rankings if, for example, two research In 2014 the Institute was evaluated by a committee comprising groups decided to leave the Institute at the same time – and this members of two divisions of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Medical sort of mobility and freedom is part of the Institute’s philosophy. We Sciences Division and Biological & Agricultural Sciences Division). The may approach a moment when another team leader may decide to assessment result was very positive and confirmed the results of a leave the Institute and migrate to an institution which will provide ranking of universities and academic research institutions, done by similar conditions for academic work, but will also provide stability the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, in which the IIMCB was of employment. Employment stability is not in the Institute’s design, assigned category ‘A+’, i.e. it was listed among 37 ‘flagship institutions’ according to the founding Act. The Institute is a research facility out of a total of 963 institutions from all fields of science. According where young, outstanding scientists, selected in open international to earlier declarations by the Ministry of Science, A+ institutions were competitions, can form their own, and usually first, independent to receive better funding for their chartered activities. The Ministry research team. As shown by the history of the past 16 years we can made good on that promise and at the start of 2015 the Institute correctly identify these ‘young stars’ and nurture their talents. received a formal decision on an increase in funding, valid through Being included in the Polish Roadmap for Research Infrastructures till the next edition of the ranking, i.e. most likely till 2017. This puts represented another successful milestone for the Institute. It was us in a comfortable position, allowing us to implement the majority the result of a two-stage competition featuring several hundred of our plans aimed at expanding the Institute’s scientific potential institutions from across Poland. The final list included 46 institutions, by increasing the number of research teams, among other things. of which 10 were associated with life sciences. This year a new Currently there is a competition in progress for the position of a competition for funding amounting to a total of approximately 2 PLN 800 million will be announced to support the development of biology, by being a major financing partner of BioCEN – the Centre these Research Infrastructures, and its results will be known in mid- for Innovative Bioscience Education. The BioCEN labs have been 2016. Success in this competition would provide funding for a new visited by 19 000 children, but as of mid-2014 the space assigned headquarters facility of the Institute. to BioCEN activities had to be transferred to the newly established At present, we employ over 200 people at our headquarters, of Zebrafish Developmental Genomics laboratory. In view of this, we whom 137 are permanent or contract employees and 43 are PhD have decided that we will finance the lease of new BioCEN facilities in students. Because of these numbers, and in relation to our plans to a secondary school nearby. This means that we will be able to further further increase employment, we had to reorganize our administration, pursue this string of very beneficial educational activities. Moreover, so as to allow for a more precise allocation of tasks and duties under the FishMed project, we run a series of educational activities between the Directors and various administrative departments. The addressed