Dr Róża Szweda and Dr Agnieszka Krzyżosiak have become laureates of the 11th edition of the prestigious SONATA BIS competition organized by the National Science Centre. Together, the winners secured grants worth more than PLN 6 million.
SONATA BIS is a funding programme for projects aimed at establishing a new research team. It is addressed to young scientists up to 12 years after obtaining their PhD who demonstrate the potential to lead an independent research group. In the 11th edition, 84 projects were selected from among 382 submitted proposals, with a total value exceeding PLN 200 million.
Dr Róża Szweda, leader of the Functional Macromolecules Research Team, was awarded for the project “Sequence-Programmable Polymers as Next-Generation Materials for Data Archiving” (POLDIGIT). The aim of the project is to investigate polymer materials for their applicability in data storage. Data will be encoded in the polymer sequence, and the main objective will be to optimize the polymer structure to enable easy readout. The project addresses the growing challenge of long-term data preservation on storage media, particularly data archiving. POLDIGIT would make it possible to store all data in just 1 kg of material.
The second SONATA BIS laureate from Łukasiewicz – PORT is Dr Agnieszka Krzyżosiak from the Astrocyte Biology Research Team. Dr Krzyżosiak leads the project “Identification of Novel Modulators of Huntington’s Disease: Neuro–Glial Interactions in a Multidimensional Patient-Derived Cellular Model” (HD-multi-3D). Her research focuses on Huntington’s disease and the investigation of the function of a selected group of genes in order to identify new, effective modulators of the disease pathology. To this end, she will use direct reprogramming models in which patient-derived somatic cells are converted into neuronal cells. Dr Krzyżosiak’s project will contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying Huntington’s disease and offers an opportunity to discover new therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative disorders.
This year, the list of SONATA BIS winners also includes Dr Dorota Pierścińska from the Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute of Microelectronics and Photonics.
Congratulations to all the winners!
