Jerzy Władysław Jurka (June 4, 1950 – July 19, 2014) was a Polish–American computational and molecular biologist known for his pioneering work on repetitive DNA and transposable elements (TEs) in eukaryotic genomes.

[3] During his tenure, he collaborated with several notable scientists, including Linus Pauling, George Irving Bell, Roy Britten, Temple Smith, and Emile Zuckerkandl.

[3] In 1994, he founded the Genetic Information Research Institute (GIRI), focusing on the computational analysis of genome sequences and the identification of transposable elements.

[2] Jurka’s team developed Repbase, a widely used reference database of eukaryotic repetitive elements that aids in DNA annotation and comparative genomics.

[8] In 2006, they reported the discovery of Polinton (also known as Maverick) transposons, self-synthesizing DNA elements found in diverse eukaryotes, providing important clues about the structure and evolution of complex genomes.