Professor Piotr Popik, PhD



Popik obtained Medical Doctor degree from the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków in 1988. Since 1985 he worked at the Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków in Jerzy Vetulani’s lab.

During years 1990–1991 he investigated the role of neuropeptides in learning and memory processes at Utrecht University with Jan M. Van Ree and David De Wied. He obtained Ph.D. from Utrecht University, The Netherlands, in 1991 (promoter: 
Jan M. Van Ree; dissertation: Neurohypophyseal peptides and social recognition in rats). Between years 1993–1995, he received Fogarty International Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (USA) and joined Phil Skolnick team as a post-doc. He worked on the role of NMDA receptors in the mechanism of action of antidepressants and drugs of abuse, including the drug ibogaine.

Skolnick's team, including Piotr Popik and Gabriel Nowak, for the work on antidepressants, was awarded with Anna Monika Prize.

Full professor of medical sciences since 2007.

I am a researcher with an overall research focus in behavioral psychopharmacology and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. I have strong interests in drug discovery and development, this is why our lab collaborates with a number of dug companies. I am a Professor of Medical Biology doing preclinical research at the Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences. I have a strong interest in education and teaching of Pharmacology at the Jagiellonian University, Medical College in Kraków. I have published over 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts, several book chapters and one book. I have trained and supervised 3 PhD students. Happily married and having three children.

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