Prof. UG, Dr hab. Bogdan Banecki has won the Primum Cooperatio (Cooperation Above All) Award, given by the organisation Pracodawcy Pomorza (Pomeranian Employers) for promoting cooperation between academic and economic environments and for practical implementation of academic achievement in the economy.

The Primum Cooperatio Award goes to the academic who has proven through his or her activity that effective cooperation between these environments is possible and beneficial to both the economy and science. The award recognises individuals in various fields of science for their scientific achievement combined with documented activity in implementing their own academic work in the economy.

Prof. UG, Dr hab. Bogdan Banecki’s academic career has been linked with the University of Gdańsk from the very outset. Apart from heading the work of his team, he has also been unanimously elected Director of the Institute of Biotechnology at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology UG&MUG for four terms in office, which testifies to the enormous trust from the academic community. He has been actively involved in the work of the faculty and the university. In recent years, he has also been involved in the supervision of the building work and the relocation of the faculty to the newly erected state-of-the-art building on the UG Campus. Professor Banecki’s team has been involved both in purely scientific research and implementation work, as confirmed by the number of articles published as well as the practical application. His research work focuses on several issues. The first is research into the risk factors and the mechanisms in the pathogenesis of a stroke, with the work conducted in cooperation with the Adult Neurology Clinic of the Medical University of Gdańsk. The second, concerning the interaction of polysiloxanes with protein, has led to results which indicated the negative effect of polysiloxanes on protein. Given the fact that these compounds are used in breast implants, for example, the results point to the potentially harmful effect of low quality implants on the human body, with such implants having been used in some EU countries. Other research work concerns cooperation with pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies and related implementation work.