EU funding lights up research at the Nencki Institute
Headquartered in Warsaw and established shortly after Poland gained independence, the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology is one of the country's leading neurobiology research labs. Bioimaging has become the Institute's principle experimental technique and represents one of its strategic development areas for the coming decade. Building on this, BIO-IMAGINE (Bio-imaging in research innovation and education) was an EU-funded project that aimed to make the Nencki Institute a leading bioimaging centre of competence in Europe. BIO-IMAGINE focused on boosting Nencki's human potential, investing in state-of-the-art equipment, and exchanging knowledge and good practice with other research institutions. Efforts resulted in the recruitment of 14 experienced scientists, including 11 postdoctoral fellows, of whom 9 have become permanent employees. The team also organised 27 incoming visits involving foreign partners and 40 outgoing missions to foreign laboratories. The Institute organised three international conferences around the theme of bioimaging, as well as numerous workshops, seminars and symposia. A spinning disc confocal microscope and a Guava® easyCyteTM 8HT Flow Cytometry System (Millipore) were purchased and installed as part of the Institute's equipment upgrade. A new high-resolution optical microscope was also installed. This new infrastructure was used for research into brain plasticity, long-term memory, Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases, and cancer therapy. As a sign of the project's success in boosting the Nencki Institute's capacities, the number of patent applications increased five-fold since BIO-IMAGINE began.
Keywords
Nencki Institute, experimental biology, neurobiology, bioimaging, optical microscope
