Professor Jacek Jemielity receives the Roman Kaliszan Award and Medal

7.10.2025

Prof. Jacek Jemielity, one of Poland’s foremost researchers in the field of mRNA, and director of the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw, has been named the laureate of the Roman Kaliszan Award and Medal. This distinction is conferred for an outstanding scientific achievement in biomedical or biopharmaceutical sciences that opens new avenues for applications in medicine and pharmacy. The Prize and Medal will be formally presented during the jubilee inauguration of the academic year, to be held on 8th October at the Polish Baltic Philharmonic.

LAUREATE’S PROFILE

Prof. Jacek Jemielity was born in 1973 in Wysokie Mazowieckie. He graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Warsaw in 1997. He obtained his doctoral degree at the same faculty in 2002, followed by his habilitation in 2012 and was awarded the title of Professor in 2020. Between 2002 and 2013, he served as Assistant Professor at the Department of Biophysics at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. He also gained research experience at the Institute of Structural Biology in France and at the University of Turku in Finland. Since 2013, he has headed the Laboratory of Biological Chemistry at the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, and in 2024 he assumed the position of Director of this Centre. He is also co-founder and president of ExploRNA Therapeutics, a University of Warsaw spin-off company that develops technologies aimed at enhancing the therapeutic potential of mRNA.

Prof. Jemielity specialises in organic and biological chemistry as well as biochemistry, particularly in the area of nucleotide and nucleic acid modifications. He is recognised internationally as one of the leading scientists in the study of chemically modified mRNA for therapeutic applications. He has supervised 13 doctoral students, 30 master’s students, and 14 bachelor’s students, and has mentored 17 postdoctoral fellows. He has carried out research projects funded by, inter alia, the National Science Centre, the Foundation for Polish Science (TEAM programme), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is co-author of more than 150 scientific publications (including in Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Chemistry, Nature Chemical Biology, Nature Molecular & Structural Biology, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., Chemical Science, Nucleic Acids Research, RNA, Organic Letters, among others), cited approximately 4,200 times, with an h-index of 37. He is the inventor or co-inventor of 14 patents or patent applications (two licensed by BioNTech and four by ExploRNA Tx). He has co-developed several technologies for mRNA modification for therapeutic use, and one of his inventions is currently being utilised in more than a dozen clinical trials. He serves on the Advisory Board of Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids (Cell Press) and is a member of numerous scientific societies. He has participated in many expert panels, has acted as an evaluator for research funding agencies, and has served on the boards of scientific institutes. For the 2024–2028 term, he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the Council of the Foundation for Polish Science.

For his achievements, he has received numerous awards, including the Polityka Science Award for young researchers, the President of the Republic of Poland’s Economic Award, several Rector’s Awards of the University of Warsaw, and nomination for the European Inventor Award granted by the European Patent Office. In 2021, he the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science in the field of chemical and materials sciences, in recognition of his development of chemical modifications of mRNA as tools for therapeutic applications and for studying cellular processes.

The Roman Kaliszan Award and Medal

The Roman Kaliszan Award and Medal commemorate a world-class scientist, Professor Roman Kaliszan, a distinguished specialist in pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacology, and analytical chemistry, who served as Rector of the Medical University of Gdańsk from 2005 to 2008. The award was established in 2020 by the Medical University of Gdańsk, the Polpharma Science Foundation, and the Gdańsk Scientific Society. Candidates are nominated by distinguished scholars personally invited by the Competition Committee.