Marek Pienkowski

Marek Maria Pienkowski (born 8 September 1945) is a Polish-American medical researcher and clinician focused on broad aspects of immunological diagnosis and treatment. He collaborated in important discoveries related to immunology, viral oncogenes, genetic engineering, and cloning and has implemented desensitization treatments for allergic disorders based on this research into his clinical practice.

He is also recognized as a cultural ambassador for the propagation of artistic, scientific, and business dialogue between the U.S. and Poland and has been appointed by the government of Poland and accredited by the U.S. State Department as an Honorary Consul. He authored the biographical memoir Iron or Steel: A Memoir on Living Dreams.

Pienkowski has made important contributions to biomedical research and development as well as to immunological clinical practice as related to immune disorders, allergy, sinusitis, and asthma. He has published more than fifty scientific papers as well as two books including the handbook for human embryology employed by medical students in Poland for over a decade. His first scientific contribution was published at age 21 in the prestigious journal Nature. He has since published highly cited research on mechanisms for allergic disease, desensitization treatments for anaphylactic shock, viral causes of cancer, culturing of human tumors in nude mice, genetic engineering to produce human proteins of therapeutic value in domestic animals, propagation of engineered genes via cloning, and management of COVID-19 vaccination of patients with anaphylactic syndrome.

He was founder and chairman of the board for Piengen Biomedical Corporation, which developed novel cloning technology and produced human proteins in the milk of transgenic domestic animals. Piengen represented the collaboration of a number of noted scientists, including Ryszard Słomski, Zdislaw Smorag, and Piotr Sicinski. Pienkowski has served on the boards of Pro2Serve Corporation and EcoSMART Technologies.

Pienkowski established a clinical practice in 1984 to serve patients with allergies, asthma, and immunological disorders. His clinic has employed his research on immunoglobulin treatments for patients with immunological deficiencies. In one notable case, he pioneered use of plasma from a hyper-immunized honeybee keeper to protect a patient who was severely allergic to honeybee stings. His practice has also pioneered treatments for peanut allergies.

Pienkowski was born in Poland and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from the Medical University of Warsaw from 1963 to 1971, where he studied and worked under the direction of the distinguished Polish scientist Kazimerz Ostrowski. He served as visiting scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Wistar Institute from 1972 to 1973. Working under the direction of Hilary Koprowski (inventor of the world's first live Polio vaccine), Pienkowski was one of Koprowski's "hand-picked staff of. . . extraordinary scientists. . . [who] had one or more talents other than science. They were creative. They were cultured." At Wistar, Pienkowski collaborated with Koprowski on research into cancer-causing viruses. Upon returning to Poland, Pienkowski became an associate professor and chairman in the Division of Immunology at the Medical Center of Postgraduate Education in Warsaw.

In 1974, Pienkowski moved to the U.S. to become associate professor in the Department of Anatomy at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Lansing. Upon receiving nostrification of his medical degrees in the U.S., Pienkowski became a resident in internal medicine at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan in 1979 and furthered his education as a post-doctoral fellow in clinical immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland under the mentorship of Professor Phillip S. Norman.

Pienkowski has been engaged in propagating cultural, artistic, scientific, and business dialogue between the U.S. and Poland since the early 1990s. He authored a biographical memoir Iron or Steel: A Memoir on Living Dreams to share "the opportunities I've had, the choices I made, and the motivating factors and values that have driven me."