Witold Konopka

Witold Konopka is associated with the Neurobiology Center at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. He recieved his Master degree from the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland and a Ph.D. with „summa cum laude” from the Nencki Institute.

Dr. Konopka began to be interested in transgenic animal technology in the Laboratory of Stress Cellular Genes, Department of Tumour Biology, Institute of Oncology, Gliwice, Poland. During his doctoral studies at the Nencki Institute (under the supervision of Prof. Leszek Kaczmarek) he implemented rodent transgenesis technology at the Institute. He generated several transgenic rat lines harbouring the genetic elements of the tetracycline system to study the transcription factor AP-1. As a post-doctoral fellow (2006 to 2012) in the laboratory of Günther Schütz at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany he studied the role of the Dicer1 gene using the mouse inducible Cre/loxP system. He showed that removing the Dicer1 gene from mouse forebrain neurons improves memory formation and additionally induces the rapid development of hyperphagic obesity.

In 2012, Dr. Konopka was appointed the head of the Laboratory of Animal Models at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS. His research focuses on the role of microRNA and other ncRNAs in neuronal plasticity, especially in the context of the behaviour and metabolism of mice and rats.