On 1-2 December 2008 final stage of the competition for a Head of a Laboratory at the Nencki Institute took place.

The following people entered the competition: Katarzyna Piwocka, Wioletta Waleszczyk, Tomasz Wilanowski and Daniel Wójcik. The members of the commission: Prof. Małgorzata Kossut, Prof. Leszek Kaczmarek, Prof. Jacek Kuźnicki, Prof. Leszek Kuźnicki and Prof. Lech Wojtczak, recommended to employ Mr Tomasz Wilanowski from the Royal Melbourne Hospital (Australia) and give him an opportunity to create an independent research group at the Nencki Institute.

The commission emphasized that continuous cooperation with the other three candidates would be highly beneficial for the Nencki Institute and recommended to create for them formal possibilities to gain independence within other big research groups working in the parallel scientific fields.