We end the year with another paper. Konrad Giżyński became a co-author in a paper:

A comprehensive toolkit for manipulation and analysis of sprouting capillary networks based on magnetic ordering of multiple EC-coated microcarriers and their use in tissue modelling and drug testing

Katarzyna Olga Rojek,   Antoni Wrzos,   Fabio Maiullari,   Konrad Gizynski,   Maria Grazia Ceraolo,   Claudia Bearzi,   Roberto Rizzi ,   Piotr Szymczak, Jan Guzowski  

Lab Chip, 2026

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2026/LC/D5LC00664C

We are pleased to announce that Aleksandra Zacheja was awarded first place in her category at the 52nd Review of Achievements of the SGGW Student Societies (2025).

The jury highly appreciated the application potential of her work, highlighting its innovative character and promising prospects for practical use.

Our 2024 Small paper was awarded during IChF`s competition for best paper! Congrats!

Visible Light‐Sensitive Sustainable Quantum Dot Crystals of Co/Mg Doped Natural Hydroxyapatite Possessing Antimicrobial Activity and Biocompatibility

Maleki‐Ghaleh, H.; Kamiński, B.; Moradpur‐Tari, E.; Raza, S.; Khanmohammadi, M.; Zbonikowski, R.; Sadegh Shakeri, M.; Siadati, M. H.; Akbari‐Fakhrabadi, A.; Paczesny, J.

Small, 2024, 2405708 (IF=13)

DOI: 10.1002/smll.202405708

We are pleased to announce that one of the candidates secured a postdoctoral position within the Ulam NAWA 2025 Programme in our group. This result places us among the host institutions selected in the latest edition of the programme, which supports the international mobility of outstanding researchers and strengthens the internationalisation of Polish science.

The awarded postdoctoral fellowship will enable the implementation of advanced research carried out by an incoming researcher from abroad, contributing to the development of our scientific activities and international collaborations.

We successfully secured funding within the SHENG project! We will start our Polish-Chinese project in February 2026.

https://www.ncn.gov.pl/konkursy/wyniki/2025-11-27-sheng-4

Together with a group led by Prof. Piyush Sharma, we successfully published another paper. Congratulations!

Targeted inactivation of bacteriophages by polypyrrole nanoparticles

Sada Raza, Dominik Korol, Enkhlin Ochirbat, Bartosz Kamiński, Maciej Cieplak, Piyush Sindhu Sharma, Jan Paczesny

Materials & Design, 260, 2025, 115204

Aleksander Piasecki, a master's student in the group, received the Rector's Scholarship of the Warsaw University of Technology. Congrats!

We welcome Jarosław Pankowski, PhD, to the group. Jarosław is a postdoc working on microbiology projects within the OPUS project.

Jan Paczesny delivered the opening lecture at the 54th National School of Chemistry “XeON”, held on 7–11 November 2025 in Karpicko near Wolsztyn. The event was organised by the Chemistry Students’ Scientific Society of the Faculty of Chemistry at Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) and brought together young chemists from across Poland.

As part of its involvement, the Institute of Physical Chemistry PAS (IChF) co-funded an award for the best student research presentation, supporting excellence and early-stage scientific careers.

The School is closely connected with the activities of the Akademickie Stowarzyszenie Studentów Chemii (ASSChem), an informal nationwide association founded in 1994, uniting chemistry student scientific societies from universities across Poland and fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange, and scientific development among young researchers. Jan Paczesny attended the 27th and 28th Schools as a student.

Sada Raza defended (with honors) her PhD thesis entitled "Inactivation of bacteriophages". She started in the middle of the pandemic, settled in Poland, became a mom, and still made it on time. Congratulations!

Diana Szymielewicz joined the team as an intern. She will work for two months on the stability of bacteriophages.

We are happy to announce that Hossein has coauthored another paper! 

Nanostructured HAp–Ta₂O₅–MWCNT coatings on Ti-6Al-4 V by plasma electrolytic oxidation: A novel approach for advanced biomedical implants

Milad Hosseini, Jafar Khalil-Allafi, Yousef Ahmadkhanpour, Hossein Maleki-Ghaleh

Surfaces and Interfaces, 73, 2025, 107588

We are pleased to announce the results of the “Young Researchers IChF PAN” competition. Four group members were awarded!

Laureates in the category of young researchers with a doctoral degree: Katarzyna Rojek, Emilia Witkowska-Nery, Hossein Maleki Ghaleh, Magdalena Wiloch, Mateusz Pielach, Kamila Łępicka, Bartłomiej Bończak, Agata Błaziak, Faria Khan, Mykola Kravets.

Laureates in the category of PhD students: Muhammad Ans, Joanna Kruszyńska, Marek Czarnota, Aneta Magiera, Klaudia Staśkiewicz, Rafał Zbonikowski, Katarzyna Dusiło, Vishnu Anilkumar, Elżbieta Jarosińska, Sada Raza.

Warm congratulations to all the awardees! 

New papers from the group! Congrats to all authors.

Langmuir Nanoarchitectonics of Thermoresponsive Adaptive System of PNIPAM-Decorated Nanoparticles Induced by the Ionic Strength of the Subphase

Rafał Zbonikowski, Asghar Aryanfar, Michalina Iwan, Martin Presselt, Jan Paczesny

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 129 (29), 13406-13419 (IF=3.2)

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5c02555

The internal energy as a function of state parameters in steady and unsteady Poiseuille flows

Konrad Giżyński, Karol Makuch, Jan Paczesny, Paweł Żuk, Anna Maciołek, Robert Hołyst

Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, 2025 (IF=4.2)

https://doi.org/10.1515/jnet-2025-0003

Green Tea Anti-Acanthamoeba Activity Regulated by Silver Nanoparticles

Ludmiła Szewczak, Mateusz Grotek, Julita Nowakowska, Mateusz Wdowiak, Jan Paczesny, Maria Doligalska

Parasitological Science, 2025

https://www.sciltp.com/journals/parsci/articles/2508001071

The "Living Materials" Group members participated in the 2025 Fall Meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) that took place from September 15 to 18, 2025, at the main campus of the University of Technology in Warsaw (Poland). 

Symposium N "Thin Film, Flexible and Composite Materials and Their Formation Techniques: Synthesis and Characterization of Functional Nano Composite Material"

* Jan Paczesny - invited talk "Nanomaterials for Antimicrobial and Antiviral Applications: From Surface Engineering to Selective Biocontrol"

* Bartek Bończak - talk "Engineering nanoparticles-based and polymer-based anti-phage materials"

* Bartek Kamiński - talk "Illuminating Antimicrobial Defense: Quantum Dot Hydroxyapatite Nanoparticles with Light Sensitivity and Antimicrobial Properties"

Symposium S "Electronic, Photonic, Nano, Low-Dimensional and Quantum Materials Nanomaterials of the Future: Advancements in Energy and Sensing"

* Jan Paczesny - talk "From unusual building blocks to responsive 2D systems at the air/water interface"

* Enkhlin Ochirbat - talk "Array-based Polymer-Phage Biosensors for Detection and Differentiation of Bacteria"

Symposium T "Electronic, Photonic, Nano, Low-Dimensional and Quantum Materials Smart Materials for Nanoelectronics - Nanophotonics & European Doctorate Network: Pcam (Physics And Chemistry of Advanced Materials) Summer School 2025"

* Gunjan Tiwari - talk "A finer approach towards 1D microparticle chains formation: methods, mechanisms, and applications"

Posters

* Natalia Szczepańska - "Inorganic nanolayers of noble metals and their compounds"

* Ziba Dargahi - "Sonochemical Synthesis of Cobalt-Doped BaTiO_ Nanoparticles for Enhanced Visible-Light Photocatalysis"

* Hossein Maleki Ghaleh - "Magnetopiezoelectric Biopolymer Nanocomposites with Quantum Dot Crystals: A Novel Approach for Neural Tissue Engineering"

Bartek Bończak received an award for the best oral presentation. Congrats!

Hossein Maleki-Ghaleh (Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences) took part in the Biofabrication 2025 Conference, presenting the talk: “3D Printed Polycaprolactone/Copper-Doped Natural Hydroxyapatite Quantum-Dots Nanocomposite with Superior Osteogenic and Angiogenic Performance in Bone Tissue Engineering”. More information about the conference is available at biofabrication2025.org.

Prof. Jan Paczesny gave an invited talk during the 1st Polish-Italian Conference on Chemistry, Materials and Biomedicine (CMB), held from 17 to 19 September 2025 in Rome. More information about the conference can be found here.

The view is from the window of the venue - the weather was wonderful and Rome is beautiful. Still, the lectures were amazing and everyone enjoyed listening to the talks.

On 1 September 2025, our team began a new OPUS 28 grant funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2024/55/B/ST5/02500) entitled: “Controlling Reaction-Diffusion Mechanisms for Advanced Self-Assembled Architectures: Periodic Precipitation and Chemical Gardens”.

We are looking for a postdoc and an MSc student. More info here.

The 49th Congress of Polish Physicists was held in Katowice from 5–11 September 2025, organised by the Polish Physical Society and the University of Silesia in Katowice. Prof. Jan Paczesny gave an invited talk during the "Biophysics" session. More information here.

At the IV Bacteriophage Symposium in Gdańsk (4–6 September 2025), Prof. Jan Paczesny gave the inauguration talk. Enkhlin Ochirbat and Bartek Kamiński presented posters. Bartek Kamiński won an award for his poster presentation. Congrats!

Prof. Jan Paczesny and Bartek Kamiński attended the 26th Biennial Evergreen Phage Meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee (USA). Prof. Paczesny gave a talk, while Bartek Kamiński presented a poster. More information about the conference can be found here.

Aleksandra Zacheja is going for an Erasmus scholarship to Lund, Sweden. She will work for a month in the group of Prof. Magnus Gram. When Magnus was a PhD student, he also supervised Jan Paczesny`s work (also within Erasmus).

Kacia Rudko went to Japan within an Erasmus program. She will work in the lab of Prof. Toshinari Maeda at Kyushu Institute of Technology.

Mateusz Grotek defended his thesis. He got an A! Dr Barbara Szczęśniak acted as supervisor and Jan Paczesny and Joanna Dolińska (IChF) supported Mateusz in his work. 

The title of the thesis: "Synteza mikrocząstek i badanie ich zdolności do samoorganizacji w zewnętrznym polu magnetycznym w celu tworzenia hydrodynamicznych układów o właściwościach memrystywnych"

Alma Mater: Warsaw Military University

Bartek Bończak is back as a postdoc. He completed his contract in Milan and is now working within the OPUS 2022/45/B/ST5/01500 grant! Welcome!