PRA 3 | Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology

Prof. Ryszard Tomasz Smoleński (born 1961) is the head of the Department of Biochemistry at the Medical University of Gdańsk since 2016. He graduated at the Medical Faculty of the Medical University of Gdańsk in 1986. His doctoral thesis under the supervision of prof. dr hab. Julian Świerczyński were defended in 1990. He received the habilitation degree in 2000, and the title of professor in 2016. In 1997-2009 he led the Heart Metabolism Research Group operating within the Heart Science Centre, Imperial College London headed by prof. Magdi H. Yacoub. He worked or did internships at research centers in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and the United States. The main research areas are the metabolism of nucleotides and cardiac energetics, studies of changes in these processes in pathology and the development of new therapies. The spectrum of research work includes the development of new analytical methods based on LC/MS, research using genetic human disease models, clinical research on disease mechanisms and identification of new biomarkers.

Biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology

- For years 2012-2018 MUG has 1531 publications. The number of citations of publications resulted in 19 856 what gives MUG the third place in this category among the studied universities (the share of 5,7% among medical universities in Poland), only little lower than the Medical University of Warsaw (6%) and Medical University of Łódź (6%);

- Considering the average citations of publications (13,0) Medical University of Gdańsk lies second only behind Pomeranian Medical university (17,0);

- The University looks a bit weaker in the assessment of quality of publications. Only 6,9% of publications appear in the first decile of the best journals in the world, which is the fifth result among medical universities. MUG is high when considering the FWCI coefficient, the University lies second behind Pomeranian Medical University with the result of 1,15;

- The grand part of researches is conducted in international cooperation. Over 37% of MUG publications were prepared in cooperation with international institutions which is the second result in the studied group. The main partner of the international cooperation are the United States of America (138 institutions), the second is Great Britain (74 institutions). The institutions with which MUG has created the most shared publications are the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the USA (40 publications) and KU Leuven in Belgium (31 publications);

- It is worth to emphasise that the significant share of researches is conducted within the framework of Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology run at the Medical University of Gdańsk;

- Among MUG researchers with the highest number of publications in the years of 2012-2018 one can find T. Bączek (72 publications) and J. Jassem (72 publications);

- Many researches from the scope of biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology support the sphere of oncology as well as cardiology and cardiovascular medicine. The example of this is the prestigious project 3P-Medicine (Preventive, Personalised, Precision) conducted within the framework of International Research Agenda in cooperation with the Swedish University in Uppsala. The aim of the project are the researches on genetic abnormalities acquired throughout life as risk factors in cancers and other diseases.