Multi-Pole Approach to Structural Science

Witold Filipowicz is working at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland and is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Basel. He graduated as M.D. from the Medical University of Lodz, and received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, where he was running his lab until moving to Basel in 1984. He also worked at the New York University Medical School, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ, and Institut Jacques Monod of CNRS in Paris, as either post-doctoral fellow or sabbatical visitor. His prior research was focused on tRNA, rRNA and mRNA processing, on enzymes regulating RNA metabolism, and a role of non-coding RNAs in gene expression. Currently, he investigates mechanisms of RNA interference and microRNA function and metabolism in mammalian cells and mouse retina. He published nearly 200 papers in this area. He received the Lifetime Achievement in Science Award of International RNA Society (2011), is a member of EMBO, Polish Academy of Sciences, and also acts as a Chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Section of Academia Europaea. He sits on Advisory Boards of several Institutes and Editorial Boards of many scientific journals, including Cell.