Wojciech Karlowski

Wojciech Maciej Karlowski (; born January 10, 1966) is a Polish biologist specializing in molecular biology and bioinformatics, and a full professor in biological sciences. He is Head of the Department of Computational Biology at the Faculty of Biology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. His major scientific interests include identification of non-coding RNAs, genomics, high-throughput analyses, and functional annotation of biological sequences.

Scientific biography Karlowski graduated in molecular biology from the Faculty of Biology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan in 1991. He was conducting experiments related to molecular aspects of symbiotic interactions between leguminous plants and bacteria, including characterization of a novel gene identified in alfalfa (Medicago sativa) mutant blocked at the early stages of symbiotic nodules development.

In the early 2000s, Karlowski worked as a Scientist in the group of Klaus F. X. Mayer in the Institute of Bioinformatics/Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences (MIPS) in Munich. He was involved in research on computational genomics of plants in a collaboration with Arizona Genomics Institute, Whitehead Institute MIT, and Rutgers University. One of his scientific achievements during that time was related to a bioinformatic analysis of data generated during the early stages of corn (Zea mays) genome sequencing. A novel approach and application of advanced computational biology techniques to the project allowed the first view at the composition and evolutionary history of the corn genome.

Karlowski then took a position at the Faculty of Biology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and also completed an internship at the University in Perpignan in France. At this time, he started a scientific project dedicated to a bioinformatic analysis of protein domains involved in silencing of transcription in a collaboration with Thierry Lagrange. In 2008 Wojciech Karlowski was appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Perpignan and collaborated with Manuel Echeverria on the functional characterization of miRNA in rice. In the same year, the Faculty of Biology Council awarded him with the habilitation degree (D. Sc) in biology.

In 2014 Karlowski received a nomination of a professor in biological sciences from the President of the Republic of Poland.

Scientific achievements Karlowski is an expert in bioinformatics, molecular biology, molecular genetics, and genomics. He is an author and co-author of numerous publications in international journals. Among some of his achievements are: