Category: Research staff

Agata Kotulska, PhD

University Degree:

Master’s degree from the Wrocław University of Technology, Faculty of Fundamental Technological Problems, majoring in Technical Physics, with a specialization in Nanoengineering. Doctoral degree from the Wlodzimierz Trzebiatowski Institute of Low Temperatures and Structural Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wroclaw.

Description

Agata Kotulska’s engineering and master’s thesis was carried out in the Optics of Fiber Optics Group, and concerned the theoretical and experimental investigation of the properties of transmission parameters of optical fibers.

As a continuation of her scientific work, Ms. Agata Kotulska carried out research in the field of optical spectroscopy, at the Włodzimierz Trzebiatowski Institute of Low Temperatures and Structural Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wrocław.

Ms. Agata Kotulska’s doctoral thesis, whose supervisor was Prof. Artur Bednarkiewicz, concerned the luminescence properties of nanocrystals doped with lanthanide ions. The thematic scope of the conducted research included the characterization of the properties of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) and Photon Avalanche (PA) phenomena. The goal of Ms. Kotulska’s dissertation was to conduct experiments related to the aforementioned phenomena, including measurements of emission spectra and luminescence lifetimes, as well as the creation of physical models and analysis of the spectroscopic processes studied.

Currently, Dr. Kotulska is employed in the Optical Physics and Biophotonics group (Optical Imaging team) at ICTER as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

In her free time from research, Dr. Agata Kotulska enjoys hiking in the mountains.

Łukasz Olejnik, MSc

University Degree:

Łukasz Olejnik obtained a Master’s degree in Medical and Environmental Biotechnology at the Medical University of Lodz and the Lodz University of Technology.

Description

Łukasz Olejnik has worked at Dystrogen Therapeutics Technology Polska in terms of cell therapies and has completed internships abroad at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Austria and Tomas Bata University in Zlín in the Czech Republic.

Łukasz Olejnik is interested in the use of molecular biology in medicine and molecular diagnostics. He started working as a Research Assistant at the Integrated Structural Biology Group in January, 2023.

Marta Mikuła-Zdańkowska, PhD Eng.

University Degree:

PhD degree at the Warsaw University of Technology (2021)

Position at ICTER:

Post-doc

Research Areas:

interferometry, digital holography microscopy, optical metrology, biophotonics

Scopus Profile: 0000-0002-4451-2492
Researcher's ORCID Id: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4451-2492
Description

Dr. Marta Mikuła-Zdańkowska graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw (Application of Physics in Biology and Medicine, specialist – Ocular Optics and Optometry) and in 2012 started her master’s studies at Warsaw University of Technology (Photonics Engineering).

Her doctoral work was devoted to digital holographic microscopy for optical microobject shape reconstruction. The aim of the research carried out within the framework of her PhD studies was to develop new solutions and measurement methods in holographic microscopy to overcome the basic measurement limitations of this technique.

Dr. Mikuła-Zdańkowska joined the Physical Optics and Biophotonics team at ICTER in December 2022 for a postdoctoral position within the NCN DAINA project. At our centre, she is expanding her knowledge and combining her experience in optometry and photonics by developing the OCT method.

Natalia Ochocka-Lewicka, PhD

University Degree:

Dr. Natalia Ochocka-Lewicka obtained her Master’s degree in Neurosciences in 2016 from Charité Universitätsmedizin in Berlin and Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. In 2022, she earned her PhD in Biological Sciences.

Research Areas:

cellular heterogeneity of the tumor microenvironment and sex differences in immune activation in response to tumors

Researcher's ORCID Id: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1464-6382
Description

During her doctoral studies Dr. Ochocka-Lewicka studied the role of immune cells in glioma progression at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw. She was also engaged in commercial projects on TCR immunotherapies.

Dr. Ochocka-Lewicka was a leader of an NCN Preludium grant. She is also a laureate of the FNP START award and a co-author of 8 publications, including papers in Nature Communications and Cell Reports.

At ICTER, she currently works in the Computational Genomics group as a Postdoctoral Fellow; her position is linked to the OPUS 21 grant.

Damian Panas, PhD

University Degree:

Dr. Damian Panas graduated from Applied Mathematics at Gdańsk University of Technology and obtained his PhD degree in Health Sciences at the Medical University of Gdańsk.

Research Areas:

mathematical modeling, machine learning, computational biology, and high-throughput sequencing data analysis

Researcher's ORCID Id: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2181-2414
Description

From 2017 to 2021 Dr. Panas worked as research and teaching assistant at the Division of Radiology Informatics and Statistics at the Medical University of Gdańsk, then from 2021 to 2022 as bioinformatician and data analyst at the Molecular Biology Laboratory at the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn. He is currently working as a Technical Specialist at the Computational Genomics group at ICTER.

Sathi Goswami, PhD

Description

Dr. Sathi Goswami obtained her PhD in biophysical chemistry from Saha Institute of Nuclear
Physics, under the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India in 2018. During her PhD she studied
the interaction of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and their metal complexes with DNA
and proteins through spectroscopic and imaging studies. She also studied the effect of these
drugs and complexes on standard cancer cells HeLa to demonstrate the changes in the epigenetic
level. Then she joined as a postdoctoral fellow at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay,
Maharashtra, India in 2018. In postdoctoral studies her research was focused on the
characterization of drug-protein interaction using different spectroscopy. In September 2022, she
joined Integrated Structural Biology lab at ICTER as a postdoctoral fellow to work on the
structure and functions of various proteins involved in the visual cycle.

Magdalena Pieczyńska-Kovács, PhD

University Degree:

PhD in Biological Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Craco

PhD in Microbial Genetics, Wageningen University, the Netherlands

Position at ICTER:

Group Coordinator & Lab Manager

Obtained her Masters in Biomedical Sciences-Human Genetics at the St’ George’s University of London. Before staring her PhD, she was actively involved in running research projects and clinical trials while working at Brighton & Sussex Medical Research Centre. She completed two PhD theses, one with receiving an award (summa cum laude) from both: Jagiellonian and Wageningen University. She continued her research as a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University and Institute of Genetics and Biotechnology Warsaw University. She also run the Sequencing Lab at the Institute of Genetics PAS, where she was both: a PI and the leader of the national grant. She led four scientific grants as a PI and the national and other European country level, co-promoted three Masters and one PhD and published in recognised scientific journals. She is the reviewer of project proposals for Science and Innovation Consultancy UK.

She holds over twelve years of a strong background gained from leading people and projects in the international environment.  She is experienced in nanotechnology, protein preparation &analysis, genetics of adaptation and molecular and cell biology techniques. Her scientific interests focus mostly on unravelling processes related to cellular interactions and genetics facilitating such events.

Prof. dr hab. Maciej Wojtkowski

University Degree:

Professor of Physics (2003), habilitation in Physics (2010) at the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland

Position at ICTER:

Group Leader

Research Areas:

Biomedical Imaging

Prof. dr hab. Maciej Wojtkowski (born 1975) is a physicist specializing in applied optics and medical and experimental physics. He started his scientific career at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. There he defended his master’s thesis, and then his doctoral thesis and postdoctoral thesis (habilitation). All degrees were awarded by the Institute of Physics, Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Computer Science. From 1998 to 1999 he was employed as a researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria, and from 2003 to 2005 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and Tufts New England Eye Center, Boston, USA. Since 2016 he has headed the Department of Physical Chemistry of Biological Systems, and since 2019 the International Centre for Translational Eye Research – both institutions are subunits of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

He has authored more than 240 scientific publications, as well as several patents and patent applications. His work has been published in the following leading journals, among others: “Ophthalmology”, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, “Nature Medicine”, “Optics Express”, “Journal of Biomedical Optics” and “Optics Letters”. He was the first to design a spectral optical coherence tomograph used for non-invasive, non-contact eye examinations. This invention has found a wide application and is used in clinics all over the world. In 2012 he was honored with the prestigious Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) Award in Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering.