We are happy to announce that two new excellent Group Leaders have been selected to create own laboratories at the Nencki Institute in 2025. The Laureates are Katarzyna Leszczyńska and Paweł Mikulski. Welcome at the Nencki Institute!

Dr. Kasia Leszczyńska specialises in cancer biology and the mechanisms of resistance to radio- and chemotherapy caused by insufficient oxygen levels (hypoxia). In 2006 she obtained the MSc degree in biotechnology at the Wrocław University of Technology. For the next 12 years she was acquiring scientific experience in the UK (2006-2018), where in 2011 at the University of Birmingham she obtained the PhD degree in the topic of pathological tumour angiogenesis. Subsequently, she undertook two post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Oxford, the first at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology and the second at the Cancer Research UK/Medical Research Council Oxford Institute for Radiation Oncology at Department of Oncology, where she focused on the problem of tumour hypoxia which leads to therapy resistance. After her return to Poland in 2019 and joining the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology at the Nencki Institute Kasia has developed her interests in the field of malignant paediatric gliomas and epigenetic therapy. Her recent work on the role of H3K27M oncohistone in paediatric diffuse midline gliomas emphasizes the role of point histone mutations and epigenetic regulation of these diseases and significance in potential therapies. Kasia is a recipient of national and international grants funded by National Science Centre and European Union. In her independent Laboratory of Tumour Hypoxia and Epigenomics Kasia will focus on examining the relationship between hypoxia and epigenetic reprogramming of cancer cells and their microenvironment. Her ultimate goal is to discover new therapeutic approaches that can improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy in anti-cancer treatment.

Dr. Paweł Mikulski received his MSc degree from the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS. Afterwards, he did his PhD thesis in the consortium of M. Skłodowska-Curie ‘EpiTraits’, conducting research in 6 European institutions, including Henrich Heine University Duesseldorf, University of Amsterdam and Diagenode company. He completed post-doctoral stays in UK in the groups of Prof. Dame Caroline Dean (John Innes Centre) and Prof. Lars Jansen (University of Oxford). He has been investigating epigenetic and chromatin mechanisms for the past 12 years. In his works, he showed a new link between subnuclear periphery and chromatin repression pathway, functional association of the RNA processing machinery with chromatin regulators, the structure of long non-coding RNAs and regulators of epigenetic transcriptional memory. Pawel moved back to Poland as a Group Leader at the IMol PAS in 2023. He is joining Nencki Institute in 2025. His Laboratory of Immunological Epigenetics will investigate epigenetic regulation of immune response genes in cancer.