HISTORY

The Institute of the Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences was established in 1988. Its roots, however, date back to the Laboratory of Alkaloids (Head: prof. Jerzy Suszko) and Laboratory of Plant Biochemistry (Head: prof. Stefan Barbacki) both founded in 1955. These Laboratories were merged in 1969 to form the Department of Stereochemistry of Natural Products, a branch of the Institute of Organic Chemistry in Warsaw. Headed by prof. Maciej Wiewiorowski the Department quickly developed, seceded from the Institute of Organic Chemistry in 1980 and eight years later was advanced to the rank of an Institute. The research activities of the Institute originally devoted to transformations, stereochemistry and spectroscopy of alkaloids were in the early 1970s substantially reorientated towards analysis of native ribonucleic acids (mainly tRNAs) and chemical synthesis of their components.