Mateusz Fido, student of the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw (UW) received the Gold Medal of Chemistry 2020. The topic of his work was “the study of cap degradation enzymes using oligonucleotide aptamer probes”.

The competition was to select the authors of the best bachelor’s or engineering theses in chemistry. It was organized by the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) in Warsaw and the DuPont company.

Mateusz Fido’s work was written under the scientific supervision of Dr Joanna Kowalska, the University of Warsaw. Designing RNA-based drugs is a key issue in the age of viral and cancer diseases. In his BA thesis, Mateusz Fido has developed a method that allows for high-throughput testing of the activity and specificity of decapping enzymes, which play a key role in the stabilization and metabolism of RNA in the cell.