Witold Filipowicz (born August 8, 1943 in Warsaw, Poland) - Polish-Swiss biochemist and molecular biologist.
Biography.
Filipowicz studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the Medical University of Lodz. He received his PhD and habilitation at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in Warsaw. This was followed by the post-doctoral studies at the New York University Medical School and Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ (laboratories of Severo Ochoa and Aaron J. Shatkin). Since 1984, he has been the head of the laboratory at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland (currently emeritus). Since 1991, Professor of Biological Sciences at PAN, and since 1997, Professor (now emeritus) of the University of Basel. He has trained over 50 PhD students and post-doctoral scholars.
Research.
Research of Filipowicz has focused on the mechanisms of maturation and function of different classes of RNA molecules and ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs), enzymes involved in RNA metabolism, mechanisms of protein synthesis, and mechanisms of RNA interference (RNAi) and microRNA (miRNA) function in mammalian cells. Filipowicz has more than 47,000 citations on Google Scholar.