Jurka was born on June 4, 1950, in the village of Ponikiew, Poland.[2] He obtained his M.Sc. in Chemistry from the Jagiellonian University and a D.Sc. in Molecular Biology from the University of Warsaw.[2] After earning his doctorate, Jurka moved to the United States and conducted post-doctoral research at Harvard University.[2]
Jurka’s team developed Repbase, a widely used reference database of eukaryotic repetitive elements that aids in DNA annotation and comparative genomics.[4] His work on Alu elements, one of the most abundant short interspersed elements in primate genomes, provided insights into their classification, the mechanisms behind their proliferation, and their paternal transmission.[5][6][7]
Jurka’s research group discovered and characterized numerous TE families. In collaboration with Vladimir Kapitonov, Jurka identified Helitrons, a family of rolling-circle transposons that influence genomic evolution.[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.[9][10]
Later, Jurka and colleagues linked TE family emergence to processes in classical population genetics, proposing that population subdivision and speciation events could correlate with the distribution and diversification of transposable element families.[11]
^Jurka J, et al. (June 2002). "Active Alu elements are passed primarily through paternal germlines". Theoretical Population Biology. 61 (4): 519–530. doi:10.1006/tpbi.2002.1602. PMID12167372.
^Kapitonov VV; Jurka J (October 2007). "Helitrons on a roll: eukaryotic rolling-circle transposons". Trends in Genetics. 23 (10): 521–529. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2007.08.004. PMID17850916.
^Pritham EJ, Putivala T, Feschotte C (April 2007). "Mavericks, a novel class of giant transposable elements widespread in eukaryotes and related to DNA viruses". Gene. 390 (1–2): 3–17. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2006.08.008. PMID17034960.
