Jagiellonian Medical Research Centre (JMRC) was founded in 1993, on the initiative of professor Richard J. Gryglewski, at that time the Chairman of the Chair of Pharmacology of the Jagiellonian University Medical College in Krakow. JMRC, a non-profit organisation  acting upon the statutes of  the foundation, has been aiming to promote medical sciences in Krakow on the basis of units and scientific potentials of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, its Medical College (Collegium Medicum) and the Polish Academy of Sciences, assuming  collaboration in the country and abroad, in compliance with the legally confirmed statutes. It has been the first organisation of that type in the Central Europe (Nature 1994, vol.372, p.597), in many ways following a model and activities of such European organisations as the William Harvey Research Institute (London), Strathclyde Institute (Glasgow) or Bio-Pharmaceutical Centre (Leyden), but with regard to the specifics of our country and our part of Europe.