Tomasz Skóra, PhD

I obtained my PhD degree from the Institute of the Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences. I defended my PhD thesis titled “Diffusion and reactions under crowding: Theory and simulations” in May 2023. My thesis was awarded with a prize by Academic Computer Centre CYFRONET AGH. Currently, I am a postdoctoral research associate in Bidone’s lab at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, University of Utah.

My primary research interest is the diffusive motion of biologically relevant macromolecules, such as proteins and ribosomes, in crowded environments akin to biological cells. In my research, I harness Brownian dynamics simulations to reveal the generic effects of macromolecules’ properties, e.g., their shape and activity, on the diffusion properties upon crowding. I develop a versatile software – pyBrown – for simulations of diffusion and reactions accounting for the hydrodynamic interactions. I currently work on modeling dynamic instability of microtubules using Brownian dynamics.