Piotr received his B.S. and M.S. in Cell Biology and Biotechnology from Jagiellonian University in Poland. During his master’s studies, he was a visiting student at the Pasteur Institute in Lille, France, where he studied skin inflammatory diseases. He then pursued a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Jagiellonian University, investigating the role of Regnase-1 in skin homeostasis and pathology. During his doctoral research, he uncovered new molecular signals that regulate epithelial cell adaptation to inflammation in barrier tissues, such as the skin. For his postdoctoral training, Piotr joined Dr. Shruti Naik’s lab, initially at NYU Langone Health and later at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. His research focused on decoding the interactions between immune and epithelial stem cells during skin repair and inflammatory pathology. During this time, he discovered a novel repair mechanism that drives the metabolic rewiring of damaged epithelium, a finding with significant implications for cellular adaptation in damage-associated diseases.
Piotr has received numerous accolades for his research, including the NIH Pathway to Independence Award. He was a finalist for the Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation and was named the 2022 Sheehan Foundation Young Innovator in Tissue Regeneration. He has also been awarded the National Psoriasis Foundation Early Career Research Award, the Research Award for Young Researchers from the European Society for Dermatological Research and Lilly Company, and the Etiuda Fellowship from the Polish National Science Center.