Anuj Sharma, Ph.D.

Anuj Sharma received his Master degree in Organic Chemistry at University of Delhi (India) in 2015. Later, in the same year he joined in PhD in Organic Material Laboratory group at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (India) where he worked on design, synthesis and characterization of fluorescent organic compounds for optoelectronic applications. Anuj obtained his PhD degree in September 2021 and currently working as Research Engineer in Functional Macromolecules group at PORT. His role is to develop chromophore-substituted sequence-defined macromolecules for tunable optical sensors.

Krzysztof Zwoliński, Ph.D.

Krzysztof holds a PhD in chemistry from the Jagiellonian University (Poland). He is a passionate bench researcher with a substantial background in various fields of applied sciences, some of which include organic, supramolecular and material chemistry. Prior to joining the Functional Macromolecules group, He worked in various scientific roles for academia and biotech companies. He brings a wealth of hands-on experience to support key laboratory and project processes ensuring their operational excellence. In his spare time, Krzysztof enjoys taking long walks, cycling and hiking. On rainy days he also enjoys taking alternative ways of making a perfect cup of coffee.

Tapendu Samanta, Ph.D.

Tapendu Samanta completed his Master degree in Chemistry (Physical Chemistry specialization) from West Bengal State University in 2013. In 2015, he joined as a research scholar at Macromolecular Lab of IISER-Kolkata to work in development of polymer based sensor molecules for the detection of toxic analytes. After completing his Ph.D. degree on April 2021, he started working as a project associate in same lab for the development of activity based fluorogenic probes for overexpressed enzymes in cancer. Later on December, 2022 he joined Functional Macromolecules group at PORT as a Research Engineer. Tapendu has extensive interest in polymer based imaging tool development for early stage cancer diagnosis. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, watching cricket/football and music.

Siyasanga Mbizana, PhD

Siya obtained his master and PhD degrees in chemistry and polymer science from Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In his PhD and a year-long post-doc position, he worked on copolymerization kinetics of N-carboxyanhydrides, synthesis and development of polypeptide-b-poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone) based copolymer as an antitumor nanocarrier. Thereafter, he worked for Fine Chemicals Corporation (Aspen) for 2 years as a regulatory affairs scientist, where he led projects on pharmaceutical process impurities detection such as nitrosamine and potential genotoxic impurities. On July 2022 he joined the Functional Macromolecules Team at Łukasiewicz – PORT, where he is exploring the sequence-structure relationship of sequence-defined polyurethanes. In his spare time, he watches soccer and read.

Franz Steppeler, Msc

Franz obtained his B.Sc. in Chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena and his M.Sc. eng. degree in Medicinal Chemistry at Wrocław University of Science and Technology (WUST). He is a fifth-year PhD student at WUST and during his doctoral studies, he focused on stereoselective syntheses and the application of aza-bicycloalkanes as rigid bicyclic substitutions of cyclic nitrogen containing compounds. In March 2023 Franz joined the Functional Macromolecules Group as an NCN scholar to work on the synthesis of sequence-defined polymers. During his spare time, he enjoys riding a bike, cooking and virtual farming.

Paweł Cwynar, M.Sc.

Paweł obtained his MSc Eng. Degree in Materials Engineering at the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST). He was a member of the research group NONA at the WUST University for 1 year and during this time he realized his master thesis about amyloidogenic proteins and their optical properties. In parallel he completed master studies – Erasmus Mundus Master Programme at the École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay in the field of Nanobiophotonics. During his education, Paweł did two internships at the Aalto University in Helsinki and Institute of Materials Science ICMAB-CSIC in Barcelona. From September he joined Functional Macromolecules Group at Łukasiewicz PORT to pursue his PhD. Paweł’s scientific interests are mainly nanotechnology in biology and medicine applications whereas his personal interests are snowboarding, analog photography, and travels.

Weronika Forysiak

Weronika studied forensic chemistry and toxicology at University of Wrocław, and in 2019 I have completed her bachelor’s degree with thesis „Biomaterials based on functionalized silicon compounds”. Now, she is a Master student of Medical chemistry at University of Wrocław. Weronika is a Master student at University of Wrocław. On June 2020 she joined Functional Macromolecules Group as an intern to work on aromatic, sequence-defiened oligocarbamates for her master project. „I am interested in combining chemistry with medicine, like drug design or implant design and I enjoy creating computer graphic, reading books and listening to criminal podcasts.”

Maksymilian Szatko

Maksymilian obtained the bachelor’s degree in chemistry and industrial analytics at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST). In his thesis he examined the spectroscopic properties of lanthanide doped fluorite crystals. At this moment, he is Master student of WUST with major at bioinformatics. On October 2020 he joined Functional Macromolecules Group as an intern to work on simulating spatial structure of sequence-defined polymers. In his spare time, he enjoys playing role-playing games and explore forgotten places.

Sara Kozub

Sara completed bachelor’s degree in forensic chemistry and toxicology. Her bachelor thesis was about biomedical applications of polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes. Currently, she is a Master student of University of Wrocław with major in medical chemistry. On June 2020 she joined Functional Macromolecules Group as an intern to work on sequence-defined, aliphatic oligocarbamates with full control of stereocenters for her master degree project.

Martyna Hofman, M.Sc.

Martyna obtained her MSc degree in Medicinal Chemistry at University of Wrocław with thesis „Development of a method of isotopically labeled tadalafil standards preparation and their application in quantitative analysis by LC-MS”. In October 2021 she joined Functional Macromolecules Research Group at Łukasiewicz PORT as Process Engineer to work on sequence-defined polymers for sensor materials. Besides science, Martyna is interested in dietetics and human nutrition. In her spare time, she likes to cycling.

Anna Smulska

Ania is currently studying biotechnology at Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. In August, she joined the Functional Macromolecules Group as an intern to learn the chemical synthesis of sequenced-defined polymers. This experience and knowledge will be helpful in her engineering thesis „Project of an abiotic polymers biosynthesis process with the use of Yarrowia Lipolityca”. In her spare time she enjoys climbing, working out with kettlebells and travelling.

Wojciech Dudziak

Wojciech studied Chemical Engineering at Newcastle University, UK. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in 2021 with thesis „Hemicellulose to biopolymers”, a design project aimed at converting wood-processing waste to phenol based resin. He is currently a master’s student in Medical Chemistry at University of Wrocław. He joined the Functional Macromolecules Group in October as an intern in the PolyDigit project. In his spare time he enjoys singing, music production, running and watching movies.

Agnieszka Lizak

Agnieszka studied Medical Chemistry at the University of Wrocław. She obtained her bachelor degree with thesis „Application of 5-amino-3-methyl-4-isoxazolecarboxylic acid as a non-proteinogenic amino acid in the solid-phase peptide synthesis”. Now, she continues her studies in Medical Chemistry at UWr as a master student. In September, she joined Functional Macromolecules Group as an intern to carry out her Master project and work on oligocarbamates as information carriers. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, reading books and working out.