Maciej Wojtkowski has contributed greatly to the development of ophtalmological research methods as the designer of a CAT scanner to test the retina. The award amounting to EUR 1.2 million is comparable with a Nobel Prize.
Maciej Wojtkowski, who is 33, worked in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spent one year in placement at Vienna University (where he studied the method of non-invasive tests) and also at Kent University in Canterbury. A scholarship holder of “Start” and “Homing FNP” programmes as well as of the “Polityka” periodical, he also has experience in projects jointly financed by the State Committee for Scientific Research and the National Institute of Health. He was granted his Ph.D. degree in 2003 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.
Maciej Wojtkowski’s method which he elaborated with a team consisting of Tomasz Bajraszewski, Iwona Gorczyńska, Anna and Maciej Szkulmowski and Michalina Góra, proved to be the best of those used in opthalmological diagnosis: “Traditionally an object is examined cutting it from an organism, but that which we developed allows functions and structures of the organism to be observed live and painlessly.” The spectral optical CAT scanner which he designed is already being used in medical institutions. The award winner now intends, within the awarded project, to study the development methods enabling new information to be obtained about the structure and functions of living organisms in a non-invasive and contact-free method, with the use of light.
The starting point is the development of new imaging methods based on optical tomography using partially cohesive light. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) allows the three-dimensional reconstruction of tissue with a resolution of several micrometers which allows structures to be subject to detailed analysis. The received images can be automatically computer-analysed, which allows an assessment to be made in the pathological progress of the examined structures. That innovative method can already be applied to assess the progress of pathological changes of a retina in such illnesses as glaucoma, yellow spot degeneracy openings, and many others.
It is Maciej Wojtkowski’s opinion that the potential resting in optical methods similar to OCT is still not being made full use of. Due to possibilities of obtaining additional information about an organism’s functions, such quantities as blood velocity and the tissue’s chemical composition measured as a function of depth, can be measured in the future in live organisms by entirely non-invasive methods, using partially coherent light. Information gathered in such a manner may assist in comprehending how organisms function and to become better acquainted with illness processes. Additional linking OCT with fluorescent microscopy proposed in the author’s project could make it possible to obtain information about the functions and structure of examined biological objects in nucleus scale. But many fundamental problems of contemporary optics will have to be solved before that comes about, in which the young investigator award will surely be of aid.
“The purpose is to move further on basing on this method and try to see the structures of all nuclei live, and not only of the eye. We still do not fully comprehend how our organism functions. It is something of a universe which we should understand. What I want is to know nature and transform that knowledge simultaneously into something practical,” remarks Maciej Wojtkowski.

EURYI award, established in 2003 on an initiative of European Heads of Research Councils (EuroHORCS) and in cooperation with the European Science Foundation ESF), is to encourage exceptionally talented young researchers from the entire world to work for the benefit of Europe’s scientific growth. EURYI is a two-stage competition: the membership organisation in a given country coordinates selection (in Poland that is the Foundation for the Advance of Polish Science, FNP), while ESF supervises how the competition is managed on the European level.