Arkadiusz W. Kulczyk

Arek Kulczyk is an Assistant Professor in the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine and the Department of Biochemistry at Rutgers University. The primary research goal of the Kulczyk Laboratory is to integrate structural approaches, in particular single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), single-molecule techniques and novel correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM) methods to study DNA replication and repair in human mitochondria.

Arek earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the UK. At the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Arek worked on NMR structure determination of zinc-finger domains from DNA ligase III (DL3) and poly-ADP ribose polymerase 1 (PARP-1), the two medically important proteins involved in base excision repair of human DNA. After earning his doctorate degree, he moved to Boston, MA and began postdoctoral studies in the field of DNA replication at Harvard University. Under mentorship of Charles Richardson, he developed novel single-molecule techniques for monitoring enzymatic activities of the replication proteins. After completing his postdoctoral training, Arek became an Instructor in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School in Boston. This junior faculty appointment provided him an opportunity to establish an independent research program. Arek determined a structure of the 650 kDa bacteriophage T7 replisome using single-particle cryo-EM. The structure provided the first detailed snapshot of the entire replisome and revealed fundamental molecular mechanisms for coordination of leading- and lagging-strand synthesis.