The research concentrates on systems of varying complexity, from whole organisms through tissues, individual cells, cellular organelles to proteins and genes.
The research at the Department of Cell Biology is chiefly directed towards elucidating signalling cascades and regulatory mechanisms of gene expression involved in tumour transformation and the immune response, including the participation of membrane lipids in signal transfer by immunoreceptors, as well as the genetic regulation of cytoskeletal reorganisation.
The Department of Biochemistry concentrates its research efforts on describing the molecular mechanisms of lipid-induced insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, the regulation of calcium-mediated signal pathways, kinesine functioning, the role of mitochondria in the maintenance of cellular homeostasis and the development of pathologies, as well as the elucidation of the structure and function of intracellular ion channels.
Formation and development of the Institute were supported in part by a donation of Nadine Sieber-Shumova, a close co-worker of Marceli Nencki from Berne and St.
[citation needed] One of its major figures was the neurophysiologist Jerzy Konorski who discovered secondary conditioned reflexes.
The outbreak of World War II interrupted a period of its intensive expansion in the field of experimental biology, over a dozen of the Institute's staff lost their lives, and its premises (including most of its 30,000-volume library) was destroyed.
The surviving staff members (professors Jan Dembowski, Jerzy Konorski, and Włodzimierz Niemierko) re-established the Nencki Institute.