Three researchers from UW, Prof. Jacek Jemielity, Prof. Edward Darżynkiewicz, Dr. Joanna Kowalska and a team of researchers, have been nominated for the European Inventor Award 2018 in the research category.
The European Inventor Award is an annual celebration of the incredible contributions of inventors from across Europe and the world to social and economic progress. The award is given by the European Patent Office (EPO). It promotes the remarkable inventors behind some of the most important inventions of our time.
This year, there were 530 proposals submitted from all over the world for inventors working in such diverse fields as healthcare, green technologies, engineering and telecommunications. The EPO experts have evaluated them and the jury, composed of internationally renowned personalities from politics, business, journalism and academia, has selected the 15 finalists – 3 in 5 categories: industry, research, non-EPO countries, SMEs and lifetime achievement.
Prof. Jacek Jemielity, Prof Edward Darżynkiewicz and Dr Joanna Kowalska from the Centre of New Technologies of UW and the Faculty of Physics are interested in the chemical synthesis, properties and applications of modified nucleotides and nucleic acids. Their research encompasses improving methods for the chemical synthesis of nucleotide analogs, designing new modified nucleotides as tools for molecular biology and conjugating nucleotides to labels, tags and new materials. However, the development of eukaryotic mRNA cap analogs with potential medicinal applications is among their particular interests.
UW researchers have been nominated by the jury of EPO in the research category for their invention of “solving the mRNA instability issue for mRNA to DNA translation” which they developed at the University of Warsaw and at the Lousiana State University (LSUHSC-S).
The public is invited to take part in conferring one of the awards: the winner of the Popular Prize is chosen from among the 15 finalists by online voting on the EPO website in the run-up to the ceremony. Voting is open until 3rd June 2018.
The Award ceremony will be held on 7th June 2018 in Paris, Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
More information about 15 European Inventor Award 2018 finalists
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=26&v=NBxXmv-EDO8
The 2017 award winners were:
- industry: Jan van den Boogaart and Oliver Hayden (Netherlands/Austria),
- research: Laurent Lestarquit, José Ángel Ávila Rodríguez, Günter W. Hein, Jean-Luc Issler and Lionel Ries (France, Spain, Germany, Belgium),
- non-EPO countries: James G. Fujimoto, Eric A. Swanson and Robert Huber (USA, Germany),
- small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Günter Hufschmid (Germany),
- lifetime achievement: Rino Rappuoli (Italy).