Tomasz Skóra, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Complex Systems Modeling, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw where I lead the Cytoplasm Dynamics and Complexity Group. Our primary research lies at the intersection of statistical physics and cell biology. We investigate the fundamental laws governing the diffusive motion of essential cellular components -— such as proteins and ribosomes —- within the highly crowded environment of the biological cell. To rigorously address this complex problem, we employ a multiscale modeling approach, spanning from all-atom Molecular Dynamics simulations through coarse-grained Brownian Dynamics up to lattice models and statistical mechanics This work aims to explain breakdown of Stokes-Einstein law in concentrated protein and polymer solutions and to establish a methodology for predicting diffusivity under macromolecular crowding.

I completed my PhD at the Institute of the Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where my thesis, “Diffusion and reactions under crowding: Theory and simulations”, was recognized with a prize by Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH. I then held a postdoctoral research associate position in Bidone’s lab at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah

Our group’s current research is supported by the Polish Returns grant from the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). If you are interested in applying statistical physics and computational methods to fundamental problems in cell biology, please visit our group website for information on PhD opportunities.