Krzysztof Sobczak

Krzysztof Sobczak–professor of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznan (Poland). He obtained his PhD degree under the supervision of Włodzimierz Krzyżosiak (2001) and postdoctoral degree (2010), both in chemistry from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry PAS. He was awarded the title of professor of biology in 2019. Since 2019, he is the head of Department of Gene Expression and since 2025 the director of Centre for Development of Gene Therapies of AMU. In 2005-2009 he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester (USA) in the group of Charles Thornton. In Rochester, he started studying the molecular basis of myotonic dystrophy (DM), the most frequent form of muscular dystrophy in adults caused by expansion of CUG repeats in RNA, concentrating mostly on abnormalities in alternative splicing and polyadenylation. In 2010, he founded a new research group at AMU, whose interests focus on the elucidation of the molecular pathomechanisms of human genetic diseases caused by the expansion of trinucleotide repeats, mostly DM and fragile X-associated syndromes which are caused by expansion of CGG repeats. Other aim of his study is development of therapeutic strategies targeting directly mutant RNA with antisense oligonucleotides and small compounds. His team was generously supported by the National Science Center, Foundation for Polish Science and EU Horizon 2020 grants. He is an author of over 80 original articles which were cited more than 5,000 times. In 2025 he was elected as member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

(ORCID: 0000-0001-8352-9812)