Dr. Izabela Sabała, Head of the Auresine project and Prof. Matthias Bochtler, Head of the Laboratory of Structural Biology, were awarded a grant within the International Academic Partnerships program funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). They have been granted 2 000 000 PLN for the project “Molecular basis of enzyme specificity and applications”, acronym MolSpec. Both researchers will be involved in research, innovation and training activities with eight foreign partners. Dr. Sabała will cooperate with Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), the Applied Molecular Biosciences Unit of the department of Life Sciences FCT-NOVA (Portugal) and with the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research (Germany); whereas Prof. Bochtler with the Institute of Biotechnology of Vilnius University (Lithuania), School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University (England), New England Biolabs (USA), Department of Biochemistry of the Stuttgart University (Germany).

The aim of the International Academic Partnerships program is to solidify and/or create new long term international cooperation between Polish and foreign research teams. Thanks to scientific exchanges with the above mentioned institutes, MolSpec will increase the scientific level of IIMCB and will improve the institute’s position within the international scientific scene, opening the doors to new international funding opportunities.

The complete list of beneficiaries can be found at NAWA website.