This year, the Polpharma Scientific Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It is one of the largest organizations financing research projects carried out by Polish scientists in the country. All funds allocated to the statutory activities of the Foundation come from Polpharma. Their value is already close to PLN 27 million.
It was faith in science that accompanied me when I founded the Polpharma Scientific Foundation 20 years ago, said Jerzy Starak, the founder and originator of the Foundation, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Polpharma SA, in his speech. It is an honor to work with a group of the most outstanding experts from the medical and pharmaceutical community.
On June 21, 2021, during the official ceremony in Warsaw, grants and awards were presented to the winners of the Polpharma Scientific Foundation competitions. Among them are the authors of the works best rated by the reviewers and the Scientific Council in the XNUMXth grant competition, winners of the competition for a doctoral scholarship and the competition for the best master’s theses from the Faculties of Pharmacy of medical universities from all over Poland.
The most important program implemented by the Foundation since 2002 is the Competition for funding research projects from the Polpharma Scientific Foundation. The theme of the nineteenth edition carried out in 2020 was “Modulation of chronic inflammatory processes induced by dysbiotic processes”.
10 research project applications were submitted to the competition, 9 were referred for review by reviewers. The Scientific Council, on the basis of its review and self-assessment covering the author’s achievements to date, the originality and innovation of the project, established a ranking list of applications and presented it to the Foundation’s management board, which decided to award three grants, with a total value of PLN 1. The winners were:
- Prof. Paweł Majak, Faculty of Medicine, III Department of Paediatrics, Medical University of Lodz. Subject: Assessment of the inflammatory response of the nasal epithelium and peripheral blood mononuclear cells to a dysbiotic and eubiotic stimulus.
- Prof. Rafał Pawliczak, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Allergology, Immunology and Dermatology, Medical University of Lodz. Topic: Mechanisms of action of selected types and species of intestinal microflora in the development of asthma.
- Dr Jerzy Kotlinowski, Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Biotechnology, Department of General Biochemistry, Jagiellonian University. Topic: Analysis of MCPIP1 protein function in the etiology and development of primary cholangitis in mice – clinical implications.
Since 2006, the Polpharma Scientific Foundation has been supporting the research activity of young scientists by organizing a scholarship program every two years for young scientists, participants of doctoral studies at medical universities and the Medical Center for Postgraduate Education. This year, a scholarship in the amount of PLN 10. PLN 9 PhD students received. So far, doctoral scholarships have been awarded with a total value of PLN XNUMX and sixty thousand.
The Foundation also rewards authors of the best master’s theses of pharmaceutical departments. The winners are selected in a nationwide competition organized by the Polish Pharmaceutical Society. The Foundation has sponsored the awards for the winners for 17 years. This year, three students from Medical Universities in Łódź, Wrocław and Katowice received them.
Jerzy Starak, congratulating all the winners, recalled the words of Albert Einsteine: “It is important never to stop asking. Curiosity doesn’t exist without a reason.
Link to the event: https://polpharma.pl/naukowa-fundacja-polpharmy/gala/