Jacek Jemielity

President at ExploRNA Therapeutics

Prof. Jacek Jemielity is the head of the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the Center for New Technologies. He received his PhD from the Department of Chemistry, University of Warsaw in 2002, and in the same year he started working as an assistant professor in the Division of Biophysics, IFD, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw. In 2020 he became a professor of chemistry. He is engaged in research on the synthesis, properties and applications of chemically modified nucleotides. He develops methods to synthesize biologically important nucleotides, creates tools to modify nucleic acids useful in studies of genetic information expression and medical applications. He developed a method to obtain mRNA with properties necessary for therapeutic applications. His inventions are used in several clinical trials on cancer immunotherapy. He is the author of over 130 scientific publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (including the most prestigious journals in the field such as Nucleic Acids Reserach, J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed, RNA, Organic Lett., Chemical Science, Molecular Cell, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Nature Communications and others). His papers have been cited more than 2200 times. He has co-authored 6 patents protecting his inventions almost worldwide and several patent applications. One of these technologies involving mRNA modification is used in clinical trials for cancer vaccines by companies such as BioNTech, Sanofi, Roche, Pfizer. He is a scholarship holder of the Polityka weekly  (2008) and winner of the President of Poland’s Economic Award in the “research + development” category (2017), he was nominated in the competition organized by the European Patent Office “European Inventor Award” 2018 in the category “Research”. In his career collaboration with talented young people fascinated by scientific research has always been very important. He is the co-founder and president of ExploRNA Therapeutics, a UW spin off company focused on developing mRNA modification technologies and developing innovative mRNA-based therapies