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OUR HISTORY

Jagiellonian Medical Research Centre (JMRC) was founded in 1993, on the initiative of professor Richard J. Gryglewski, at that time the Chairman of the Chair of Pharmacology of the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow. JMRC, a non-profit organisation  acting upon the statutes of  the foundation, has been aiming to promote medical sciences in Krakow on the basis of units and scientific potentials of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, its Medical College (Collegium Medicum) and the Polish Academy of Sciences, assuming  collaboration in the country and abroad, in compliance with the legally confirmed statutes. It has been the first organisation of that type in the Central Europe (Nature 1994, vol.372, p.597), in many ways following a model and activities of such European organisations as the William Harvey Research Institute (London), Strathclyde Institute (Glasgow) or Bio-Pharmaceutical Centre (Leyden), but with regard to the specifics of our country and our part of Europe.

Lines of the activity of the Foundation, based on the obligatory statutes, have been determined by the Scientific JMRC Council. Its first President was professor Richard Gryglewski, one of the most prominent Polish scientists whose research works and discoveries gave basis for development of modern pharmacology of endothelium and circulation system. The Members of the Council were professor Alexander Koj, the Rector of thr Jagiellonian University, a world-known scientist whose discoveries greatly influenced the image of modern biological sciences and professor Andrew Szczeklik. a physician of great achievements in both clinical and experimental fields of cardiology and allergology.

Presently the President of JMRC Council is professor Stefan Chłopicki and the Members are: professor Maria Nowakowska, professor Włodzimierz Buczko and professor Jerzy Adam Żołądź. The programme and activities of the Foundation are realized in accordance with the statutes by the Administrative Board. Till 2006 the Member of the Board was Zofia Michalska, doctor of chemistry and coworker of professor Gryglewski in the Chair of Pharmacology who was accompanied by Maria Chechlińska, professor Gryglewski’s Personal Assistant for many years, till 2018. The Board was joined in 2005 by Dominika Piszczek, graduated from the Jagiellonian University and, presently the only Member of the Administrative Board.

The essential aim of the Foundation activity is consolidation of all disciplines of medical sciences, beginning with molecular biology, biochemistry and pharmaceutical botany via genetics, physiology, immunology and pharmacology, with special focus on pharmacology of endothelium, to highly advanced clinical science and practice (internal medicine, cardiology). Up to now, within the outlined frame, the JMRC Foundation has been organizing lectures of the excellent scientists from the country and from abroad, invited to Krakow to deliver their lectures open for scientific workers from Krakow and from outside of Krakow. The Foundation has been also engaged in a small-scale publishing job (there were a few books edited and published), in promotion of young scientists and funding of awards for the best of them as well as fellowships designed especially to help colleagues from behind the Eastern frontier of Poland.

However, the basic duty of the JMRC Foundation has been for years organizing of international scientific symposia, organized every year by the Foundation since 1993.  All of them had the highest possible scientific value and rank. Among their lecturers were the best of outstanding world-known scientists in the field including the Nobel Prize laureates (Sir John Vane 1982; Robert Furchgott, Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad 1998).The participants of those symposia, since the very beginning of the JMRC history, apart from numerous young researchers and scientists from the country, from Europe and U.S.A. have always been scientists from the former Soviet Union, from Lithuania, Byelarus and Ukraine. The Foundation, depending on its financial possibilities, helped them to cover the costs their participation in the meetings.

The JMRC symposia, already with several-years tradition, were organized till 2004 by the founder of the Foundation and the President of its Council, professor Ryszard J. Gryglewski. The following – from 13th to 19th – JMRC Symposia were organized by his successor, now the President of the Foundation Council, professor Stefan Chłopicki. Since 2010 JMRC has been organising its Symposia in cooperation with Jagiellonian Centre of Experimental Therapeutics (JCET), beginning with 2012 under the title: Cracow Conferences on Endothelium. Nowadays, with multi-centre international scientific cooperation and exchange becoming direct and continued for years the Foundation tends to focus more on supporting development of research by funding research grants for promising young scientists.

To realized statutory activity as organasing lectures and symposia, editorial tasks, offerring of grants, the Foundation finds financial suport in contract research.