Academic biography

Dr Tomas Zurawski works in the field of Molecular Neurobiology, specifically on the molecular mechanisms of communication in the peripheral nervous system, the pharmacology of clostridial toxins and their use as biotherapeutics to improve motor and sensory neurological disorders. He received a BSc in Systematic Biology & Ecology and MSc in Systematic Zoology & Ecology from Masaryk University (Czech Republic) in 1997 and 1999, respectively. He then used funding from the Czech Science Foundation and an Erasmus/Socrates scholarship to obtain doctoral training at Queen’s University Belfast (U.K.) and was awarded a PhD degree in Parasitology in 2002. A Marie Skłodowska-Curie Post-doctoral Research Fellowship supported his move to University College Cork (Ireland) to investigate how Rab GTPases control intracellular membrane trafficking. After working at UCC for two years, he was recruited in 2004 by Prof J. Oliver Dolly to join the newly established International Centre for Neurotherapeutics at DCU. The Centre's research focused on multi-disciplinary investigations on the molecular basis of synaptic transmission and the design of second-generation recombinant botulinum neurotoxins with potential to normalise transmitter secretion from over-active nerves or immune cells. Dr Zurawski developed and implemented an array of ex- and in-vivo bioassays to test clinically-relevant biological activities of novel therapeutic candidates.