François Chapeville (Franciszek Chrapkiewicz), an outstanding Polish biochemist, spent his entire adult life in France. After graduating in veterinary and biochemistry there, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Fritz Lipmann laboratory at Rockefeller University in New York. There, he conducted studies that proved that the genetic information encoded in DNA is deciphered in the process of protein biosynthesis via adapter tRNA molecules (adapter hypothesis). In the years 1979–1991 he was appointed director of Jacques Monod Institute of Molecular Biology at the University VII in Paris. He was a great promoter of Polish-French cooperation in the natural sciences. He passed away in Paris at the age of 96. He was buried in his hometown of Strzyżów in the Podkarpacie region.

Professor Leszek Kuźnicki, an outstanding protozoologist, the President of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the years 1993–1998, died in Warsaw on February 3, 2023 at the age of 94. Throughout his professional life, he was associated with the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. Moreover, he chaired the Cytobiology Committee as well as the Evolutionary and Theoretical Biology Committee of Polish Academy of Sciences. He played a significant role in creating the modern scientific infrastructure in Poland. Throughout the years of his activity, he strongly advocated the idea of maintaining high standards of excellence in research work. He used to say that education should be available to everyone without exception, while scientific work is only intended for the most motivated and the best. It is with deep regret that we say goodbye to a man dedicated entirely to science and the Polish Academy of Sciences.