<p><strong>Associate Professor <a href="https://lcms.cz/articles?search=Pavel+Po%C5%99%C3%ADzka"><strong>Pavel Pořízka</strong></a> is a member of Prof. Kaiser&#39;s research group, <em>Advanced Instrumentation and Methods for Materials Characterization</em>, at CEITEC BUT. Although the researchers mostly focus on the development of instrumentation and methodology in collaboration with industry, they have recently started to explore applications in biology thanks to a junior grant. In a GAČR-funded project entitled <em>Processes of laser ablation of soft tissues and subsequent development of laser-excited plasmas</em>, Pořízka and his team focused on the analysis of soft tissues using LIBS (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy).</strong></p>
<h3><strong>The completed project was rated as excellent; it was also the first grant you led. Can you tell us more about it?</strong></h3>
<p>That was under a programme that I am happy to talk about and of which I was a successful applicant. It&#39;s a good thing that grant agencies provide individual calls for young scientists at the beginning of their careers, give them the opportunity to participate in a grant competition and gain valuable experience in managing larger projects. The grant we are talking about was announced by the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová agentura České republiky, GAČR) in the GAČR JUNIOR call (which gradually transformed into the larger JUNIOR STAR call). It&#39;s basically financial support for budding scientists. One of the conditions for applying for this grant was a long-term internship abroad, so I went to the University of Florida under a Fulbright grant.</p>
<p>Thanks to the junior grant, I had the opportunity to build my own team focusing only on the analysis of biological samples and to be its principal investigator. Until then, I was mainly a co-investigator on grants within our research group. As was the case of the previous grant awarded to my colleague Pavlina Modlitbová, which was again a grant for young researchers, TAČR – ZÉTA programme. This grant focused mainly on applied research, but it was in the field of biology, too.</p>
<h3><strong>What do you see as the biggest advantage of these programmes that support scientists at the beginning of their careers?</strong></h3>
<p>They literally get careers off the ground. Usually, if you haven&#39;t had a grant and you haven&#39;t been a principal investigator, you have little chance of getting a grant, which creates a kind of vicious circle. These programmes are supposed to disrupt that established system, and I&#39;m glad it&#39;s working that way. If there is even more intensive funding for grants for early-career scientists and, in particular, female scientists, that will only be a good thing. Thanks to this programme, we have received follow-up grants that have helped us to enter other scientific fields. It really is a great helping hand at the beginning of a career.</p>
<h3><strong>How does the process of selecting winning projects work?</strong></h3>
<p>Practically, it&#39;s a standardized procedure. The project is evaluated by a GAČR panel, where the committee and the opponents give their opinions on it. It is not simply included in the regular GAČR cycle with standard projects; it is judged outside of it. As a result, the project is evaluated independently of other project applications submitted by experienced scientists with a &quot;better&quot; CV. The h-index has long been crucial from the GAČR&#39;s point of view but this is also changing. At the beginning of one&#39;s career, one has a less impressive CV, and when one has to compete with someone who has a successful 20-year-long scientific career and has already received several research grants in the past, it is hard to get ahead.</p>
<h3><strong>Why did you take an interest in biological applications?</strong></h3>
<p>After returning from my internship abroad as part of my PhD studies at BUT, in our research group, we started to develop not only the development of instrumentation, which was historically strong here, but also the possible applications. This direction was interesting for several reasons. The most important factor was that it was a topic that I was personally interested in, especially in terms of the difficulty of analysing the sample itself, interpreting the data, and optimizing the parameters of the measurement setup. It was also something that pushed our collaboration towards developmental biology and, in time, perhaps clinical research. Thanks to this, we are collaborating with the Academy of Sciences and clinical departments at the University Hospitals in Hradec Králové and Ostrava. Last but not least, we have moved on to another grant and it has also brought us new contacts abroad.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Pavel_Porizka_Diky_juniorskemu_grantu_jsme_ziskali_nove_projekty_i_zahranicni_spolupraci_Desticky_fe04570b77/CEITEC-Pavel-Porizka-Diky-juniorskemu-grantu-jsme-ziskali-nove-projekty-i-zahranicni-spolupraci-Desticky.jpg" alt="CEITEC: Pavel Pořízka: We have obtained new projects and foreign collaboration thanks to a junior grant"/></p>
<h3><strong>Can you highlight any foreign cooperation?</strong></h3>
<p>The strongest foreign cooperation in the field of biology is with the research group of Professor Andreas Limbeck from the Technical University of Vienna and Associate Professor Gabriela Kalčíková from the University of Ljubljana. We have a joint grant with both on the detection of microplastics in soft tissues and their influence and toxicity in these tissues. To sum it all up, this was a strategic and key decision for us – we have expanded our existing applications to include biology, and this has taken us further. We&#39;ve created a smaller team of about five or six students and two postdocs that are just focused on biological applications, whether we&#39;re talking about plant analysis, hard tissue (teeth and bones), or soft tissue (organs).</p>
<h3><strong>What is the potential of LIBS in the study of tumour tissues?</strong></h3>
<p>LIBS is a method of analytical chemistry designed for elemental analysis that is applied in a wide range of fields, including biology, but also, for example, geology. The method allows the distribution of elements on the surface of a prepared sample to be measured. In clinical research, we are investigating whether the LIBS method can be used to diagnose and support pathology and standard procedures currently used to refine the estimation of the extent of cancer in human skin. This is our main hypothesis. If we are able to refine the estimation of the area of diseased tissue, this could be used for diagnostic purposes during surgical procedures in the future. However, this remains a vision for now.</p>
<h3><strong>How far are you?</strong></h3>
<p>At the moment, we have already obtained dozens of samples from the hospital, and we have permission from the ethics committee to study them. The analysis of these samples is ongoing and we are preparing several scientific articles to present our research achievements. We also participate in international conferences where we receive positive feedback. This support convinces us that our work is worthwhile and that we should continue. We are focusing on combining different approaches from the perspective of correlative microscopy, which means combining classical microscopy and spectroscopy to use different techniques to obtain the most comprehensive information about the samples, i.e. how the chemical and structural composition changes depending on the disease being studied.</p>
<h3><strong>Where would you like to take the research in the near future?</strong></h3>
<p>We are moving forward and would like to submit another grant in the framework of Czech-Austrian cooperation in collaboration with the Technical University of Vienna. This will be a follow-up grant focusing on human tissue analysis and the study of skin cancer. But again, I have to stress that the beginning of this journey was the junior grant mentioned above which opened the door for us both in soft tissue analysis and international cooperation. Without this support, we would not have been able to successfully continue to discover new applications and expand the use of our method.</p>
<h3><strong>So you have analysed mouse and pig tissues first?</strong></h3>
<p>Clinical samples are very valuable to us, so we have model tissues – organs from laboratory mice – that we use to simulate human tissue. We don&#39;t measure clinical samples straight away, we first have to check if the system itself is working at maximum performance. In fact, when we analyse samples with LIBS, we use a powerful laser pulse to slightly heat and vaporise the material, creating the necessary analytical glowing plasma, thus practically destroying the sample. So the thin histological sections we get from the hospital are gone after the measurements.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Pavel_Porizka_Diky_juniorskemu_grantu_jsme_ziskali_nove_projekty_i_zahranicni_spolupraci_lab_2289946f37/CEITEC-Pavel-Porizka-Diky-juniorskemu-grantu-jsme-ziskali-nove-projekty-i-zahranicni-spolupraci-lab.jpg" alt="CEITEC: Pavel Pořízka: We have obtained new projects and foreign collaboration thanks to a junior grant"/></p>
<h3><strong>Can we say that you are pioneers in measuring tumour tissue with LIBS?</strong></h3>
<p>I wouldn&#39;t say that at all. There are a few labs in the global community working on similar topics. We are slightly inspired by the success of our French colleagues at the University of Lyon. The LIBS method is not as established as competing methods. This is what makes the whole research more interesting, as we have to discover a lot of things ourselves. We are trying to move it closer to standard, routine use. So I wouldn&#39;t say pioneers, but I think we are making a significant contribution to making it more widely adopted and more competitive with other techniques.</p>
<h3><strong>Does the startup you founded in 2019, Lightigo, help you do that?</strong></h3>
<p>Extremely. It helps us develop systems that are not commercially available in the world, which was one of the most significant limitations of the whole method. This is something where we see ourselves quite at the forefront – on the one hand, we are developing the actual method of how to measure samples, and on the other hand, we are also able to develop systems in broad collaboration with our startup. This connection gives us the unique ability to adapt the system according to how it should measure, what performance it should have, which also makes it possible for us to move forward faster. This way, we are not dependent on any third-party instrumentation. However, it&#39;s more challenging in that we need broader funding.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Pavel_Porizka_Diky_juniorskemu_grantu_jsme_ziskali_nove_projekty_i_zahranicni_spolupraci_2f1c1f9224/CEITEC-Pavel-Porizka-Diky-juniorskemu-grantu-jsme-ziskali-nove-projekty-i-zahranicni-spolupraci.jpg" alt="CEITEC: Pavel Pořízka: We have obtained new projects and foreign collaboration thanks to a junior grant"/></p>
<h3><strong>How demanding, financially speaking, is LIBS compared to competing methods?</strong></h3>
<p>The instrumentation and the low cost of the method are some of its biggest advantages. Our system is significantly cheaper than competing techniques, such as LA-ICP-MS, but lacks the sensitivity that seems to be essential in some applications. It is sufficient In applications such as the detection of heavy metals in teeth and bone. Although the LIBS method cannot be adopted in all applications, it can be used in many cases and achieve both financial and time savings. The limitations of the method were one of the aspects we addressed in the JUNIOR grant.</p>
<h3><strong>Are there any applications where you have already got into “hot water”?</strong></h3>
<p>There are some but that makes it all the more interesting to try. For example, we have not yet been able to detect iodine, which is used to stain the sample before computed tomography, i.e. before structural analysis. But we don&#39;t see it as a failure. It shouldn&#39;t sound like that, because if we can&#39;t do something now, it doesn&#39;t mean that we won’t be able to do it in the future with further development of instrumentation and measurement methodology.</p>
<h3><strong>What is the priority project now?</strong></h3>
<p>Right now, the three most important projects for us are the three GAČR projects and other TAČR projects in the TREND and NCK programmes. So we have a number of ongoing projects that involve the development of instrumentation and application in industry. However, we are able to manage such a broad scope because we have a group of talented students in our lab who help us significantly in moving forward quickly. They work on sub-topics and actively contribute to the development of our method during their studies.</p>
<p>Two GAČR projects are focused directly on biology, meaning we are able to follow our strategy. In the first project, we are starting our third year of work, and it concerns the detection of nanoparticles as indirect biomarkers of human tissue. With this method, we can specifically label the defined tissue, for example, breast cancer. Another priority for us is the detection of microplastics in soft tissues, where we combine LIBS, LA-ICP-MS and Raman spectroscopy for chemical analysis. We complement these spectroscopic and spectrometric methods with structural analysis by computed tomography from the laboratory of Assoc. Tomáš Zikmund, who is also part of Prof. Kaiser&#39;s research group. Our aim is to find out how the presence of microplastics affects the surrounding soft tissue and whether their presence can have any negative (toxic) effects. Trace elements are commonly found in plastics, including some toxic ones such as lead and cadmium. These substances can diffuse into the surrounding tissue and possibly affect it.</p>


Pavel Pořízka: We have obtained new projects and foreign collaboration thanks to a junior grant

<p><strong>Vinicius Santana, a Brazilian scientist exploring the area right between physics and chemistry, specifically the application of electron spin resonance (ESR), has been part of the Magneto-Optical and THz Spectroscopy group at <a href="https://lcms.cz/companies/36">CEITEC</a> BUT led by Petr Neugebauer since 2018. The talented young scientist explains how he got into this highly interdisciplinary research and speaks about his plans now that he has been awarded the prestigious JUNIOR STAR 2024 grant by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GAČR).</strong></p>
<h3><strong>How long have you been in Brno and how did you get here?</strong></h3>
<p>I arrived in Brno in January 2018 to join Petr Neugebauer’s group. He had just gotten his ERC Starting Grant to develop a high-frequency high-field electron spin resonance (HF-ESR) spectrometer, the only of its kind in the Czech Republic and, to some extent, with worldwide unique capabilities of fast frequency sweeps for studying spin dynamics. It was an incredible journey where I participated in the construction of the new spectrometer from scratch. Before coming, in September 2017, I submitted a project to the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MCSA) for the mobility of international researchers. The project was not selected, although it was considered excellent. Therefore, it was funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports via the European Social Fund. Since then, I have dedicated my time to the application of ESR to solve problems in different scientific fields with a focus on molecular magnetism.</p>
<h3><strong>Could you describe your current research projects?</strong></h3>
<p>I collaborate with different groups and projects to use ESR for tracking radicals in chemical reactions and in the study of charge transfer in catalytical processes. This technique is sometimes the only resource to explain mechanisms that lead to the optimization of systems with relevance in everyday life, such as new drugs, water treatment, and novel technological materials. I also participate in collaborations where I help to characterize defects and dopants in oxides with different purposes, such as dyes, piezoelectrics and catalysts. I am currently a team member in a GAČR EXPRO project aimed at enhancing the NMR techniques using ESR, with an impact on medical diagnostics, and in another GAČR Standard aimed at preparing, characterizing, and depositing new single-molecule magnets (SMMs) on surfaces. These compounds are promising candidates to substitute large magnetic domains in storage devices with molecular units capable of storing one bit of information, drastically improving the storage density and efficiency. I have a bachelor, master and PhD in Physics. However, I have always worked at the intersection of physics and chemistry, characterizing new materials and particularly interested in the signatures of magnetic phenomena in electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra. My focus is on molecular crystals, particularly those where arrays of spins in molecules give rise to different quantum phases that can be controlled externally by the application of a magnetic field.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_VUT_Vaclav_Konicek_Vedu_delaji_lide_a_lidi_pohani_vasen_Vasen_sama_ale_pro_dobrou_vedu_nestaci_rika_Vinicius_Santana_1_a95bcef368.jpg" alt="CEITEC/BUT/Václav Koníček: Science is made by people and people are driven by passion. However, passion alone is not enough, says Vinicius Santana"/></p>
<h3><strong>You have been awarded the JUNIOR STAR 2024 grant for one of your projects. What does that mean to you and your project?</strong></h3>
<p>It is a great opportunity to push forward my career from a junior postdoc researcher to a junior group leader. I really enjoy the laboratory work and data analysis and I intend to keep performing these tasks. But it is great to be able to coordinate a team that will work with me towards the aim of the project, which is related to the production and characterization of suitable molecular crystals with weakly coupled spins to demonstrate/reveal exotic phenomena, quantum entanglement and phase transitions. I am proposing to modulate the interaction between molecules in a crystal by varying the magnitude of the interaction among them, creating different networks of entangled molecules. This will be done by pushing forward methodologies in ESR in a wide range of frequencies and at high magnetic fields. What motivates me in my work, which is actually what got me to come to this field in the first place, is to explain unexpected features in the classical ESR spectra of magnetic materials. The outputs can also be helpful to people working in the field of molecular magnetism, providing new methodologies in ESR to explain the behaviour and the observed data in novel compounds. We will also develop new sample holders, so the project is a synergic interaction between engineering, physics, and chemistry. One of the goals of the project is to show that there are quantum phases in these molecular crystals that can be tuned by the orientation of an external magnetic field and to study the spin dynamics in these phases to demonstrate that they have an enhanced coherence time, with a potential application of these systems as quantum bits.</p>
<h3><strong>Could you describe the potential practical applications of your research?</strong></h3>
<p>The long-term goal and my vision with this project are to produce and characterize new molecules that can have a potential application as quantum bits (qubits), which are the basic units of a quantum computer. This technology will transform various aspects of society by enabling faster and more efficient computation, secure communication, and precise sensing. Materials for that purpose must have an enhanced coherence time, which is the time it can hold a given quantum state, enabling logical operations. We will design and characterize many new compounds that could eventually reach benchmark results.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_VUT_Vaclav_Konicek_Vedu_delaji_lide_a_lidi_pohani_vasen_Vasen_sama_ale_pro_dobrou_vedu_nestaci_rika_Vinicius_Santana_2_27245d9024.jpg" alt="CEITEC/BUT/Václav Koníček: Science is made by people and people are driven by passion. However, passion alone is not enough, says Vinicius Santana"/></p>
<h3><strong>Last but not least, what do you think is most important in a researcher’s work?</strong></h3>
<p>It is important to remember that science is made by people, and we are all driven by passion. However, passion alone is not enough to attract good people to the project. Having a work-life balance and enough time to think deeply about the problems we face in research is just as important as working hard. The conditions around the work are extremely relevant when it comes to our well-being as well as our performance. <a href="https://lcms.cz/companies/36"><strong>CEITEC</strong></a>, for example, provides an excellent environment, it has an excellent infrastructure so that we can focus mostly on our research work, and this is really great. I see a trend that is now getting a lot of attention about the mental health of postdocs around the globe, to improve working conditions, salaries and so on. The Nature group has published a series of articles on that (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03298-7">Postdocs are pushing back against low pay and conditions - more institutions must take heed</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03296-9">Falling behind: postdocs in their thirties tire of putting life on hold</a>). And I believe that is an important topic to discuss if we want the young new generations to feel attracted to do basic and applied research, as it is the only way to push society forward.</p>
<p>Another very important thing is cooperation. Excellent work can only be achieved by means of collaboration. Big and complex problems usually require various expertise that is often spread among different groups, which can be in different cities or countries. High-level publications are usually the output of these interactions. I value this a lot and that is why, in my project, I have engaged many collaborators from different backgrounds to help guarantee the success of my team’s outputs.</p>


Science is made by people and people are driven by passion. However, passion alone is not enough, says Vinicius Santana

<p><strong>In the vast universe of scientific research, there is an area with such a small scale that it escapes observation by the human eye. It is these tiny particles and structures that we can explore with electron microscopy, a field that has revolutionised our understanding of the world. With its unrivalled ability to visualise structures at nanometre scales, electron microscopy has broken new ground in disciplines ranging from biology to materials science. We use the full spectrum of applications here at <a href="https://icpms.labrulez.com/companies/36">CEITEC</a>, where our research simply cannot be done without electron microscopes. Since Brno is the imaginary queen of electron microscopy, we have the opportunity to participate directly in the development of this technology and to be part of the innovation ecosystem, the fruits of which can be observed during events such as the Electron Microscopy Days.</strong></p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Po_stopach_neviditelneho_aneb_Elektronova_mikroskopie_v_Brne_1_7926dd92b9.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno"/></p>
<h3><strong>Electron Microscopy Days</strong></h3>
<p>In March, CEITEC traditionally joined the <strong>Electron Microscopy Days</strong>. Both our campuses in the week of 18-23 March 2024 came alive in the spirit of this popularization event organised by Brno Observatory and Planetarium, which involves a number of partners spread throughout Brno. Every year, universities, scientific and popularization centres and manufacturing companies open their doors to the general public, especially children, and prepare rich programmes for them: from lectures to excursions to laboratories and production facilities to scientific games and experiments. The theme chosen for this year was “Villains of the Microworld”. Each institution handled the theme differently, so the main villain was the mite, the symbol of this year’s Electron Microscopy Days, but also viruses at <strong>CEITEC MUNI</strong> or electrons at <strong>CEITEC BUT</strong>.  Hundreds of people visited the various lectures, exhibitions and experiments at CEITEC this year – from schoolchildren on field trips to families with children during the weekend programme.</p>
<h3><strong>The birth of electron microscopy</strong></h3>
<p>Electron Microscopy Days, as the name suggests, give a glimpse under the hood of a field that is one of the cornerstones of scientific research today. The origins of this field date back to the first half of the 20th century. One of the oldest sciences, which still plays a significant role to this day – optics – was the most important for its development. At that time, it was no longer just about simple optics, the science of the propagation of light, but also about the theory of electromagnetism, in which the study of light also falls.</p>
<p>Determining the exact <strong>date of the birth of electron microscopy or the creator of the first electron microscope</strong> can be problematic, but what we do know is that as early as *<em>1931 Max Knoll</em> and <strong>Ernst Ruska</strong> in Berlin generated the first transmission electron microscope images. At that time, Soviet physicists were developing electron microscopes, too. In the following decades, electron microscopes spread all over the world and became a mainstay of scientific research in many different disciplines.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Jan_Michalicka_Po_stopach_neviditelneho_aneb_Elektronova_mikroskopie_v_Brne_56430c5901.jpg" alt="CEITEC/Jan Michalička: In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno"/></p>
<h3><strong>Principles of electron microscopy</strong></h3>
<p>Unlike conventional light microscopes, which use visible light to illuminate samples, electron microscopes use a beam of directed electrons. These electrons exhibit wave properties and have much shorter wavelengths than photons, allowing for much higher image resolution. The best electron microscopes, such as our Titans, can also image single atoms.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Po_stopach_neviditelneho_aneb_Elektronova_mikroskopie_v_Brne_4_ed8a80087c.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno"/></p>
<p>Petr Lepcio from CEITEC BUT explains the physical principles of electron microscope imaging as follows: <em>“Electrons are first extracted from the cathode, accelerated by a strong electric field and finally directed by an electromagnetic lens array onto the sample. These so-called primary electrons can cause a variety of phenomena, e.g. they can bounce back, knock another electron out of the sample structure or cause X-rays to be emitted. The individual signals are then picked up by the detectors and processed by the computer into a black-and-white image of the sample. The interaction of the electrons with the material can provide additional information about the composition of the material or the orientation of the crystalline domains.”</em>  However, this process requires very specific conditions, Lepcio adds: <em>“The inside of the microscope is pumped into a deep vacuum so that no gas molecules can interact with the flying electrons and affect their trajectory. At the same time, any vibrations that could blur the image must be carefully avoided and external electromagnetic fields, such as those from a transformer station at a nearby tram depot, must be shielded.”</em> Shielding from the slightest vibrations is quite crucial for high-precision microscopes: <em>“For microscopes like the Titan, this even requires special structural modifications, placing the microscope on a separate concrete block that is not connected to the building’s foundation so that vibrations from the floor cannot be transmitted, and installing special equipment to compensate for external electromagnetic smog.”</em></p>
<h3><strong>Applications across various fields</strong></h3>
<p><strong>The versatile applications of electron microscopy</strong> span a variety of scientific fields and offer invaluable insights into biological, material, and environmental sciences. In biology, they enable visualization of cell organelles, protein complexes and viruses, helping us to understand fundamental biological processes and disease mechanisms. Researchers can explore tissues’ complex architecture and unlock life’s secrets at the molecular level.</p>
<p>In materials science, electron microscopy plays a crucial role in characterizing the relationships between the structure and properties of materials such as metals, semiconductors and polymers. By imaging the arrangement of atoms and defects, scientists can design new materials with tailored properties for applications ranging from electronics to renewable energy.</p>
<p>In addition, electron microscopy contributes to environmental research and protection by analysing pollutants, nanoparticles and microorganisms in environmental samples. Understanding the interactions between pollutants and ecosystems helps in designing strategies for environmental remediation and sustainability.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Po_stopach_neviditelneho_aneb_Elektronova_mikroskopie_v_Brne_2_e8c4cee592.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno"/></p>
<h3><strong>Microscopes at CEITEC</strong></h3>
<p>The widespread use of electron microscopes means that these instruments are essential in more or less any research and investigation we carry out at CEITEC. That is why we also have a variety of them at CEITEC, with different specifications and different resolutions – depending on what they are used for.</p>
<p><em>“The shared laboratory of cryo-electron microscopy at <strong>CEITEC MUNI</strong> uses four transmission electron microscopes, three of which have an accelerating voltage of 200 keV,”</em> says Karel Škubník, deputy head of the laboratory. “However, the flagship of the laboratory is the Titan Krios microscope, which has an accelerating voltage of 300 keV.” At CEITEC MUNI, microscopes are used to study the structures of biological samples, such as proteins or ribosomes, i.e. cellular formations that produce proteins. Škubník also says that researchers are also looking at <em>“viruses that infect humans or threaten entire populations. In addition, we also have three scanning electron microscopes, which are used to examine the surfaces of biological samples in particular, for instance in plants, but we have also, for example, measured the surface of a meteorite.”</em></p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Po_stopach_neviditelneho_aneb_Elektronova_mikroskopie_v_Brne_5_b0a9ac1a28.jpeg" alt="CEITEC: In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno"/></p>
<p>At <strong>CEITEC BUT</strong> we have seven electron microscopes, one of which is also Titan. <em>“As these are some of the most popular instruments in our shared <strong>CEITEC Nano laboratories</strong>, which are regularly used by over 100 users, the range of applications is really wide,&quot;</em> Lepcio explains. <em>&quot;The most common applications are research on advanced materials, nanoparticles, nanofibres, and other nanomaterials, as well as polymers, metals, ceramics, semiconductors, and natural materials. Microscopes serve a variety of purposes, from studying their structure, size, topography and morphology, to analyzing defects and fracture surfaces, to quality control of fabricated micro- and nanostructures.”</em> Even at CEITEC BUT, we occasionally get our hands on more exotic samples, such as historical artefacts.</p>
<h3><strong>Electron microscopy in Brno</strong></h3>
<p>Electron microscopy is a crucial field for us at CEITEC for another reason. CEITEC is proud to be part of the Brno innovation ecosystem #brnoregion, where electron microscopy plays a vital role. With giants such as <strong>ThermoFisher Scientific</strong>, <strong>Tescan</strong> and <strong>Delong Instruments</strong>, Brno is simply the centre of electron microscopy. Every third electron microscope in the world is manufactured here!</p>
<p>The manufacturing companies, together with research and scientific centres such as CEITEC (and other faculties at both Masaryk University and Brno University of Technology), and educational institutions such as VIDA!, form a perfectly complementary community in which researchers and former students participate in the development of microscopes, Brno companies manufacture and supply them, and here in research centres, we work with them and discover new applications. This fruitful synergy in Brno&#39;s microscopy ecosystem manifests, for example, during the Electron Microscopy Days or in the <strong>newly established Master&#39;s Programme in Microscopy</strong>, which the Faculty of Science at MUNI opens this year.</p>
<p><em>“Brno is a city of science, research and innovation. It is also a city of cooperation. It is thanks to the cooperation of companies in the field of electron microscopy, the academic sector, scientific-popularization institutions, and the public sphere that we have been hosting an absolutely unique event for several years. Its contribution is enormous – it popularizes science, promotes interest in studying technical and natural science disciplines, and represents a very promising field as well as the technological potential of our city,”</em> concludes Brno City Mayor Markéta Vaňková.</p>


In the Footsteps of the Invisible or Electron Microscopy in Brno

<p><strong>One of the <a href="https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/actions/postdoctoral-fellowships"><strong>Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-FP)</strong></a> schemes that supports the training of early career scientists with an emphasis on comprehensive professional and career development helped <a href="https://www.ceitec.eu/william-shakespeare-morton-ph-d/u94475"><strong>William S. Morton</strong></a> from <a href="https://vacha.ceitec.cz"><strong>Robert Vácha’s research group</strong></a> to fund his research at <a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/companies/36"><strong>CEITEC</strong></a> Masaryk University. The new call for MSCA-FP applications opens on April 10, 2024, so we wanted to learn first-hand from both William and Robert about pros and cons of this funding and find out more about this young American scientist’s motivations to do science in Brno, as William travelled across half of Europe from his last posting, and money did not play a major role.</strong></p>
<h5><strong>William, when we met you told me you were doing “fake biology” and “fake physics”. Can you explain what you mean by “fake”?</strong></h5>
<p>If we wanted to see what happens when we drop a plate of spaghetti on the floor, we could use pasta. Instead, we could use pieces of string that are the same size, or maybe cut up elastic bands. These wouldn’t be the same as using pasta, but it would be an approximation. We could then control the conditions by tuning the exact length or material. My job is similar. Scientists at CEITEC perform a lot of cutting-edge research on proteins, and I make representations to isolate a specific property. Then we figure out if theories about our fake proteins are comparable to the real thing.</p>
<h5><strong>How did your journey to Brno and CEITEC begin?</strong></h5>
<p>I came here for an internship in 2022, during peak COVID times. My supervisor had worked with Robert when they were both at Cambridge and thought he would be the expert to help me with some computer simulations. Later, Robert mentioned the possibility of me coming to CEITEC for a postdoc. I was halfway through writing up my thesis when we called for the interview. We talked for a while and eventually I asked when he would like me to start this project. We were chatting on Thursday, and he said, ‘Monday would be great’. I thought he was kidding; he wasn&#39;t.</p>
<p> <strong>Robert Vácha:</strong> Recommendations within the scientific community are extremely important. I always try to find new members of my group through someone I can rely on to recommend a good candidate. At that time, William was working with Stefano Angioletti-Uberti, who was doing simulations with polymers and nanoparticles. William had become interested in nanoparticles in contact with membranes and we have a lot of experience with that. Stefano put us in touch so that William could learn how to simulate such systems and so he came to us for an internship. A year later, we were starting a project in which the experiments were already done but the simulations with a model at the level William was working on were missing. Therefore, he was an ideal candidate and it was also an opportunity for him to get involved in an already running project. But we needed to get the simulations done as soon as possible, so I was in a hurry for his arrival.</p>
<h5><strong>What was the one thing that made you decide to come to Brno?</strong></h5>
<p>There were multiple aspects: The first one was being able to work continuously with Robert and his group, a collection of fantastic scientists. I already knew that I liked the culture and environment around Brno, everything here is very accessible, and there’s plenty of outdoor activities. The last aspect was that moving here terrified me. To put myself in the middle of a whole bunch of real biologists who are all speaking Czech? But eventually I thought, ‘cool, I think I can do this’.</p>
<h5><strong>At what point did the MSCA funding come into play?</strong></h5>
<p>It will likely come in May, I&#39;ve not signed the contract yet, the European Union still has it. But to be precise, my research will be funded by European Research Agency (ERA) as part of the Horizon Wider Area Talents program. The MSCA-PF reviewers give your grant a score from 0–100. If your score is above the cutoff for the category you’ve applied to, you earn the MSCA. This year for life sciences, the cutoff was 94.4%. If you receive above 90% on an application for the Czech Republic (the exact value varies in each area), then your grant will be funded by the ERA as part of the Horizon Wider Area Talents program. And that was my case.</p>
<h5><strong>How did you learn about the MSCA grant?</strong></h5>
<p>As soon as Robert hired me, he mentioned this. He had so many ideas of things that I could do. He pushes his group to do more for ourselves, and for CEITEC – like developing and teaching courses. It’s a great quality in a supervisor because it&#39;s hard to remember to care about all of those things at the same time, so it’s good to be reminded.</p>
<p><strong>Robert Vácha:</strong> There were several reasons why I recommended the MSCA-FP grant to William. First, the MSCA-FP grant is a &quot;brand&quot;, so in addition to getting funding for his own research, the grant is a visible item on any scientist&#39;s CV, and second, it gives a young scientist a taste of what grant writing is like (and writing a first grant is always the most difficult). William and I talked about the time it would cost him, but I knew it would be time well invested because I was convinced that William had a very good chance of getting the funding. In addition to his talent and knowledge, I knew he would be a great fit for the group on a personal level. That&#39;s why I&#39;m thrilled that he has received the grant and will be able to work with us here. After all, my goal is not only to have a group of great scientists, but to make a great team that will be a pleasure to work with.</p>
<h5><strong>Was it difficult to administer the application?</strong></h5>
<p>Actually, I wasn&#39;t going to apply for the grant, originally. I didn&#39;t have enough time because I started this position while finishing my PhD. I also didn&#39;t know if I would still want to be here after a year. Then a week before the deadline, I was applying for a different grant, and thought I was already writing one anyways – so I wrote it up quickly and e-mailed the grant office. Thankfully the grant office wasn’t too mad at me, but I know it put them under extra pressure. But the whole team there is amazing, and I’m still thanking them for helping me out.</p>
<h5><strong>What will be covered by the funding besides your relocation?</strong></h5>
<p>It covers my salary, which is probably the most important part for researchers considering this grant. But the great thing is you get a pool of resource money for research. With computer simulations, it can be easy to build something bespoke: custom. When it comes time to purchase something, say a peptide, that could mean that it is expensive. Having your own resources allows you to make these purchases, without the fear that your experiment may take away funds from someone else&#39;s.</p>
<p>Along the way, we can also help support master students who work for us by giving them some stipend. It&#39;s something that we can do to help the community at CEITEC – bring in master students to start learning these skills.</p>
<h5><strong>What are the requirements you must fulfill for the funding?</strong></h5>
<p>To meet the requirements, I must make good on everything I promised in my application. Writing the grant feels like a fever dream, so I had to look up what I wrote once I got the news. Apparently, I promised to publish three papers but also share my research at various levels throughout the scientific and local community. Reaching out to the local community is much harder but so much more worth it, and CEITEC offers a lot of opportunities for that. I think that is going to be the goal that I care about the most. I&#39;m really excited about the Sip of Science events in TED-talk style here at CEITEC MUNI. Me and my other colleagues were already talking about how to put our research into simple terms because that is the key to a good scientific speaker. And that, I think, is often unfortunately the last thing on anyone&#39;s priority list.</p>
<p>I also leaned into one of the stated goals for the horizon project, which is translation to industry. Opening this type of communication can be difficult in practice but is also part of my engineering background, so it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. I’m excited to start a project from scratch with the intention of making it translatable to an industrial field. Usually that’s an afterthought. I think this helped to set my application apart from the others.</p>
<h5><strong>Is being “different” an advantage for getting a grant?</strong></h5>
<p>In every example I saw, the focus is always on the scientific part, which intuitively makes sense. But there are other questions to consider: Is the research impacted by any gender issues? Do underrepresented populations have any place in your research? These aspects tend to get marginalized. I tried to produce arguments for how my research could impact and recognize different people. This is the hardest part to write because you want to be genuine but not pandering. I sent this part to most of my friends, academics or not, just to get as much feedback as possible. Getting their feedback won’t hurt, and even if there’s nothing you can change, you can at least be aware.</p>


Scientists should ask themself what impact science has on different people, says applicant for prestigious MSCA-FP funding

<p><strong>One of the most prominent and internationally recognized experts in the field of structural biology, Professor Vladimír Sklenář, died on 13 April 2024. Professor Sklenář made a significant contributions to the field of structural biology. His Watergate method is now widely used in biomolecular NMR. At the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Masaryk University, he was instrumental in establishing world-class research infrastructures in structural biology, particularly in NMR spectroscopy and electron microscopy. His tenure at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University and CEITEC was characterised by a great passion for scientific challenges and a great deal of humanity with which he approached his colleagues.</strong></p>
<p>Vladimír Sklenář&#39;s professional career was launched by his interest in experimental techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR spectroscopy), which he pursued at the Institute of Scientific Instruments in Brno. In the late 1980s, his focus led him to the USA, where he published thirteen original and still widely cited scientific papers during his stay at the National Institues of Health in Maryland. In 1990, his <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/345836a0"><strong>study of DNA triplex formation in solution</strong></a>, co-authored with Prof. Juli Feigon, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California Los Angeles, was published in the prestigious journal <strong>Nature</strong>.</p>
<p>After his stay in the USA, he briefly returned to the Czech environment, habilitated at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University in the field of physical chemistry and then became a researcher at a pharmaceutical company in Strasbourg, where he developed the Watergate method, which is now commonly used in NMR spectroscopy to suppress the solvent signal.</p>
<p>Vladimír Sklenář applied the experience gained abroad to the Czech environment upon his return, and thanks to his unusual diligence and consistent approach to scientific challenges, a laboratory was established under his leadership at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, focusing on the development of NMR spectroscopy methods and their application to the study of the structure and dynamics of biomolecules. <em>&quot;With the passing of Professor Sklenář, the Faculty of Science of MU has lost one of the most important personalities of its modern history. Together with Professor Koča, Professor Sklenář was instrumental in the establishment of the National Centre for Biomolecular Research (NCBR) and made a significant contribution to the development of structural biology, especially nuclear magnetic resonance methods. Thanks to him, we have one of the best workplaces in this field in Europe, perhaps even in the world. Last but not least, professor Sklenář has built up valuable international contacts, which enable our students to gain experience at the most prestigious world workplaces in their field,&quot;</em> says Tomáš Kašparovský, Dean of the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University.</p>
<p>Vladimír Sklenář has also played a key role in the establishment and development of the Masaryk University research institute CEITEC, since its establishment in 2011, he has been actively involved in equipping it with state-of-the-art instruments for NMR spectroscopy and for several years coordinated the structural biology programme with the vision of building scientific excellence. Through his efforts, many outstanding researchers have come to CEITEC, many of whom have won prestigious ERC and EMBO Installation grants for Masaryk University. Vladimír Sklenář has also shown courage and a great deal of foresight in introducing new technologies, such as cryo-electron microscopy, which enable researchers at CEITEC to make significant scientific discoveries. <em>&quot;Professor Sklenář&#39;s contribution to the support of quality research and new promising research teams coming to Masaryk University is invaluable and has clearly contributed to the development of quality research with international overlap. For many scientists of the younger generation, he was and will always remain a great role model both on scientific and personal level,&quot;</em> says Šárka Pospíšilová, Masaryk University&#39;s Vice-Rector for Research and Doctoral Studies.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Odesel_vynikajici_vedec_prof_Vladimir_Sklenar_13_4_2024_b1cbd5bbab.jpg" alt="CEITEC An outstanding scientist, Prof. Vladimír Sklenář, has passed away"/></p>
<p>For twelve years, Vladimír Sklenář led the Czech Infrastructure for Integrative Structural Biology (CIISB), which he helped to build not only in the conceptual phase, but also by obtaining initial funding and establishing CIISB as an effective group of service laboratories supporting scientists in excellent research. Shared infrastructures in the field of structural biology were a pioneering venture in the Czech Republic at that time and their excellent results under the leadership of Vladimír Sklenář were crucial for the integration of CIIBS into the European Instruct and Instruct-ERIC networks. Over the years, CIISB has become the backbone of the Czech structural biology community, enabling both Czech and international scientists to measure data using state-of-the-art instrumentation and gain insight into biological processes. <em>&quot;The service laboratories supported by CIISB enable scientists in the Czech Republic and abroad to carry out ambitious research projects. The popularity of CIISB laboratories among scientists is a testament to the quality of the system that Vladimír has set up in this infrastructure,&quot;</em> confirms the importance of the cutting-edge laboratories Pavel Plevka, Director of CEITEC, Masaryk University.</p>
<p>Prof. Sklenář&#39;s personality went far beyond professional and geographical boundaries – his reputation as an excellent scientist made a good name not only for his research field, but also for the city of Brno, where he lived for a long time. His love for basketball and cycling was positively reflected in his competitiveness, without which quality science could not do without, and his sociability and sense of humour made him a good person to work with.</p>
<p>His colleagues, who have contributed their memories to this text, will remember him as a great colleague and an excellent scientist who enjoyed the company of good people, fine wine and jazz...</p>
<p><strong>The last farewell to the dearly deceased will take place on Friday, April 19, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. at the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church of J.A. Komenský in Brno (Red Church).</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.ceitec.eu/an-outstanding-scientist-prof-vladimir-sklenar-has-passed-away-16-april-1951-13-april-2024/t11298"><strong>Electronic Book of Condolence</strong></a></p>


An outstanding scientist, Prof. Vladimír Sklenář, has passed away (* 16 April 1951 - † 13 April 2024)

<p><strong>It is not his dream to be a Nobel laureate, he says he no longer sets goals. He says he is happy and has no regrets, and if an award comes, it will be a pleasant surprise, not the fulfillment of his desires. The highly successful scientist Martin Pumera, who heads the Future Energy and Innovation research group at <a href="https://icpms.labrulez.com/companies/36">CEITEC</a> BUT, celebrated his jubilee this January. And so, in a nearly three-hour long but energetic and very open interview, he also takes stock. What is the journey of the most cited chemist working in the Czech Republic? What does he have in common with the fairytale character Elsa from Frozen? And does an exceptionally talented man who has published a remarkable 900 scientific papers in his career even have time for a private life?</strong></p>
<h5><strong>Prague, Brno and Ostrava are all proud of your work. How far can we say the “Pumera Group” stretches?</strong></h5>
<p>Let&#39;s start with the hard stuff. Well done (laughs). I have to explain it a little more broadly. I am, of course, Czech. I have a Czech passport, and I consider myself Czech, but when we talk about the Czech academic system, I am more of a foreigner who speaks Czech. I don&#39;t understand it, even though it is expected of me as a professor. And I don&#39;t mean that in a bad way. As a student, I didn&#39;t understand the system, and right after I got my PhD., I left for America with my wife. Spain, Japan, and Singapore followed, and some 20 years later, we returned to Prague. So I am more familiar with the foreign academic system where this “octopus” style with tentacles everywhere is common in various institutions and labs. My boss in Japan, for example, had five positions in five universities. For me, it’s the fact that I care more about the people I work with than the position I hold.</p>
<h5><strong>However, your main work base is in Brno at CEITEC BUT. Despite the fact that you live near Prague. Is it worth the trip down the D1 highway?</strong></h5>
<p>It is. If I didn’t like it here, believe me, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t work where I don’t like, and I don’t work with people I don’t like. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s my mindset. CEITEC is a rather unique institution in the Czech Republic, offering great facilities and, above all, freedom, which is not common. It’s more of a foreign model of operation. So I am glad that Director Vrba is running it this way. Although he is probably laughing now that I complain a lot otherwise (laughs).</p>
<h5><strong>What do you complain about?</strong></h5>
<p>It’s not even things I want for myself as much as for my research group. There are thirty of us now, but we have so many projects that I have to take on another twenty people. And I don’t have the space for them without us having to be spread out over three buildings. I need them to be together. So this is what we are discussing now, for example.</p>
<h5><strong>In Japan, they wanted to keep you after two years of your work. You were guaranteed a lifetime position, why didn&#39;t you take advantage of it?</strong></h5>
<p>That was a noteworthy achievement, even for the Japanese, and I could have stayed until retirement. It was the National Institute for Materials Science. I just didn’t enjoy the work. I thought, what am I really bringing to the company besides patents and papers? I missed the interaction with the students.</p>
<h5><strong>I’m sure you had and still have many tempting job offers. What makes CEITEC so special that you turn down other, even better-paying positions?</strong></h5>
<p>CEITEC is run in a great way, basically the American way. The group leader has his research and when he leaves, the research goes with him. No one replaces him in his work. The lab is offered to someone else who brings in a new topic. In contrast, the system that is common elsewhere in the Czech Republic, but also in Austria, for example, is that there is a professor and many associate professors. And they practically have to wait for the professor to retire so that one of them can become a new professor. By that time, they might be 55 years old and they don’t have the “drive” that they might have had when they were younger. For me, the most important thing is that my end “product” is people who leave my group and find success. They don’t have to wait until I retire, or die, to be in the top positions.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Kdo_je_Martin_Pumera_jeden_z_nejcitovanejsich_vedcu_sveta_1_e8ffc8de7c.jpg" alt="CEITEC: Who is Martin Pumera, one of the most cited scientists in the world?"/></p>
<h5><strong>Roughly how many people are we talking about?</strong></h5>
<p>I’ll tell you exactly. Nineteen former members of the group are now heads of research groups or professors. I’m very proud of that because the usual scenario would be to produce just one, pat him on the back, and send him to Germany, for example, and someone else takes his place. Piece for piece. I’ve got 19 of them, and I’m not done yet. I’m proud of it.</p>
<h5><strong>Are you still in contact with them? Do you know who’s working where and what they’re doing?</strong></h5>
<p>I have a map in my office with pins where my stars are. In addition to the group leaders, there are postdocs and other students of mine. All in all, I have about 60 stars around the world, and the rest are still here. And we do keep in touch, we call each other. I’ve also had a lot of people send me birthday greetings for my 50th birthday, and I was very touched by that. I don’t want to sound sentimental, but I have it set up so that I am responsible for all my students. At the same time, I see their success as my success – that I taught them something, and they didn’t end up unemployed. That charges me up.</p>
<h5><strong>And do you call them stars?</strong></h5>
<p>No, that&#39;s a new word for me now (laughs). I call them kids. They&#39;re all our kids (laughs). I have two kids myself, so it&#39;s the same at work. I try to make sure they grow up to be good people professionally.</p>
<h5><strong>Where specifically are your former students working now?</strong></h5>
<p>My first student, who had a Chinese passport, was a vice president in Australia, and now he’s the president of a big pharmaceutical company in China. My second student, with a Singaporean passport, is now the vice president of a pharmaceutical company in Singapore. When I travel to those countries, I always text them to see if we can grab a beer together. The last time, the Singaporean student and her husband invited me to dinner and thanked me. After my initial protests that I had basically done nothing and it was all her work and effort, she countered that my leadership had prepared her well for whatever she encountered professionally. And that’s the most telling thing and the biggest award for me. Not the articles or the research, but the accomplishments of my students.</p>
<h5><strong>Do you have Czech students in your group?</strong></h5>
<p>I had a group that was 50-50. Half Czechs, half foreigners. And it didn&#39;t work for me, because then they logically switched to their native Czech. I found that I worked better with foreigners, but not exclusively. I also have Czech students or postdocs in my group. But statistically speaking, there are a billion people in China, and the Czech Republic has ten million people, so what are the chances of a Czech applying to me? And that we will select him? Especially if I’m not offering a lifetime position? All I’m guaranteeing is that in four years, they&#39;ll have great CVs and, most importantly, the skills to be accepted anywhere.</p>
<h5><strong>There are people of different nationalities, cultures, and religions in your group. Is it difficult to unite them? At first, the only connection they have is their interest in science and English.</strong></h5>
<p>It’s true that I have people here from different parts of the world, and I don’t think there is a research group in the Czech Republic where there are so many nationalities. At the beginning they seem strange to each other – that’s logical – they seem strange because they are different. But then they get to know each other, enrich each other, and find out that they are normal people experiencing the same problems – they have families, children, and health concerns, too. That’s what I love about it. There’s a lady from China and a lady from India sitting here and they’re best friends, which probably wouldn’t normally happen to them. We live in a bubble of our own here with no outside pressures.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Kdo_je_Martin_Pumera_jeden_z_nejcitovanejsich_vedcu_sveta_2_575b2e0df8.jpg" alt="CEITEC: Who is Martin Pumera, one of the most cited scientists in the world?"/></p>
<h5><strong>What does a student learn with you?</strong></h5>
<p>The BUT specifically, but also the city of Brno, allows students to apply for junior grants, which is a great thing, and again, it’s not common everywhere. It’s like in sports. The student trains at these small races to see how the race works. He can prepare for it and then we increase his benefits. By the time he leaves, he’s a top athlete – he can write a grant. My PhD students can do a whole project based on an assignment – measure it, analyze it, and then assemble the whole product, that is, the paper, and sell it. And once you’ve mastered the process, you just keep copying it. That’s my strategy.</p>
<h5><strong>Who inspires you?</strong></h5>
<p>I am inspired by people from other fields. I started with Jim Rohn, a successful American speaker, then Jan Mühlfeit, former Microsoft CEE Director, and finally, I started listening to Warren Buffett, whom I quote most often. These are all people at the top of the industry who have a very wise approach to life. I learned from them and adopted a lot of things from them. Specifically, only working where I like and with people that I like. But I have also been asking successful people from scientific circles at various conferences what advice they could give me.</p>
<h5><strong>What’s the first piece of advice that comes to mind?</strong></h5>
<p>I mostly remember advice that went against my expectations. This happened at a party in Japan, and there was a famous scientist – now retired – Sumio Iijima. I introduced myself to him at the time, saying that I was a young group leader, and asked what advice he had for me for my life. And he told me to make contact, but not with old people like him, but with young people (laughs). That’s what a famous successful scientist is telling me! But on the contrary, I thought, you want to keep in touch with successful people. So I thought at that time, what is this nonsense? But it sticks in my head, and I&#39;ll appreciate the advice in five, ten years.</p>
<h5><strong>How did he explain himself?</strong></h5>
<p>The way he described it to me was that although he was a Japanese scientist, he had several contacts with scientists his age from Korea. And even though Japanese-Korean relations are at zero, he can call them anytime and ask them anything. He told me honestly. And that’s what I tell my people: I will always support you if you want anything, want me to connect you with somebody – I’ll do it, but the main value is not me, it&#39;s the people, the colleagues who are here with you. In a few years, when you’re elsewhere, higher up, you can turn to these colleagues, and you’ll know what to expect from them. You don’t have to talk all the time but keep track of where they are.</p>
<h5><strong>You can tell that mentoring students is charging you because we still haven’t got to your articles and research. Is that on the back burner?</strong></h5>
<p>Of course, I’m also charged by research because we’re doing interesting things. I like my job because I can do whatever I want. For example, we’ve now decided to 3D print structures out of lunar basalt for space applications. Do I have a grant for that? No, I don’t have a grant. But I have the money and I want to invest in it. And what’s it gonna be? Probably a couple of articles... but maybe the student who’s one of the few people to 3D print structures for future constructions on the Moon will be hired by Elon Musk or some multinational construction company. I don’t know, it’s a new field for us. We’ll see how it goes. But the point is, I can do what I choose to do. And there are many ideas.</p>
<h5><strong>You’re working on a wide range of topics, from nanorobots to electrochemical research, and now you’re talking about space applications. Do they have a connection?</strong></h5>
<p>Let me explain my research philosophy. Everyone just asks about nanorobots – what they do, how they work – and I’m tired of it. We’re not doing anything unique. We’re combining familiar things like Legos – but in a new way.  For example, every kid can 3D print today, but try printing an electrode. To actually make it conductive? We spent two years on that. So it’s always about how you use the skills you have and connect them in another field. And that’s a challenge that I enjoy. Similarly, we’re looking at generating electricity from vibrations (from noise, when walking), producing hydrogen, and storing it as ammonia; hand in hand with that, we are producing ammonia in a way that won’t consume too much energy. To summarize and get back to the nanorobot thing – if I were to just focus on that, I’d obviously invent a better nanorobot that moves better, but without applications, and that’s useless to me. Speaking of nanorobots, we’re, for example, focusing on detecting microplastics in water and upcycling them or removing bacterial biofilm. We’ve also been working on nanorobots for a space mission for four years. By combining research directions – such as 3D printing, nanorobots, space, microplastics, biomedicine, and energy – we are getting knowledge into places where few people can go, and we are benefiting tremendously from the combinations within the group.</p>
<h5><strong>You have authored an incredible 900 scientific papers, which is unique. What’s your driving force?</strong></h5>
<p>When I was still in Singapore 15 years ago, I had ambitions to complete as many projects successfully as possible. More like I needed to prove to myself that I could do great research. I know I can, and I know that there are better people than us – that’s okay. Now I really don’t care if I have twenty more. Warren Buffett doesn’t care about having twenty million more either (laughs). I’ve been told that I can’t have that many articles and that it’s a scam. It isn’t. I worked with students during the day and wrote articles and grants late into the night to fund the whole thing.</p>
<h5><strong>Do you have time for any hobbies?</strong></h5>
<p>I read a lot, mostly science fiction stories. Luckily, I have already created my sci-fi (laughs) – with those nanorobots and 3D printing structures out of lunar magma rock, so I don’t have to read anymore because I live my own sci-fi story. I also enjoy running and cycling.</p>
<h5><strong>How long did it take your wife to stop complaining about your working late?</strong></h5>
<p>That’s a touchy subject. About six or seven years. I’m really sorry, and if I could give anything back, it would be more time with my family. When I was writing those articles and grants at night, my wife had to watch the movies alone. And that’s how it was every night, unfortunately. Now, I often watch TV with her and the kids, and I don’t work until two anymore. I’m too old for that now, too.</p>
<h5><strong>Do your kids want to go into science too?</strong></h5>
<p>I don’t make them, nor is it something I would wish. I want them to be happy with their lives. Both kids are in secondary school now. But it’s funny how they hold up a mirror to you. They take on both positive and negative qualities (laughs). Oliver is going to be 18 soon, I went to see him at 10 PM and I told him: Oliver, stop it, it’s late, it will work out with the exam. And he said: But Dad, I have to, isn’t this what life’s about? Performance?” (laughs) Where did he get that rubbish from? (laughs) I don’t tell him, of course, but he can see for himself what Dad does in the evenings. So that’s why I try to slow down, too, so he doesn’t think a man has to work all the time.</p>
<h5><strong>You have celebrated your 50th birthday. Did you take stock?</strong></h5>
<p>In several ways. As Warren Buffett says, life is like a snowball – everything you’ve done adds up. And now the snowball has just started rolling, sometimes too fast, and you have to run away from it (laughs). So my wife and I made a deal that I would work for another 50 years and then we would enjoy retirement for 20 years (laughs). Then, I also mistakenly thought that my wife and I had just been jumping from an ice floe to an ice floe, not knowing whether we would land on an ice floe or fall into the water. We just moved from Spain to Japan, and we didn’t know what was going to happen. And I realized that it’s not like that, that I’m like Elsa from Frozen. It’s funny to be comparing myself to a fairy tale princess, but she was able to wave her hand and create ice. We all make our own way. As successful people say, we create our future ourselves.</p>
<h5><strong>What’s your biggest accolade? Besides your successful students?</strong></h5>
<p>When Richard Compton from Oxford went to get me a beer, despite his diabetes and difficulty walking, he said: Martin, I want to tell you that you do great science, and better than us. Even when I protested, saying they do it differently and brilliantly, too, he insisted. He finished by telling me that he would go and get me a beer, not wanting to hear any more contradiction. The human tribute is the greatest reward for me. He could have told the waiter or one of his colleagues. The most famous electrochemist in the world, my idol, is getting a beer for me – that’s all I need in life.</p>


Who is Martin Pumera, one of the most cited scientists in the world?

<p><strong>A research team from CEITEC BUT led by Markéta Kaiser participated in an international study to investigate the effect of protein intake on the fetus during pregnancy. The study was conducted on mice, or mouse embryos to be more precise. Thanks to the imaging possibilities offered by computed tomography in our CT Lab CEITEC, it was possible to create illustrative 3D models of cartilaginous tissue that clearly showed the differences between mouse embryos with different protein intakes.</strong></p>
<p>At CT Lab CEITEC, researchers led by Prof. Jozef Kaiser focus on basic and applied research in collaboration with industry. The industrial partners are critical in applied research. Computed tomography is a non-invasive, non-destructive method that allows the detection of cracks or other defects on a wide variety of components so that if a company discovers that there is a problem somewhere, the CT Lab staff can detect and describe the problem without the company having to cut up or otherwise dismember the expensive product or component. The knowledge gained in this way in turn advances the researchers’ understanding of the phenomenon.</p>
<p>When it comes to basic research, the researchers are involved in so-called reverse engineering, where professional data display and analysis programs, which are primarily designed for mechanical engineering, are used in biology. Using advanced methods, they are able to image not only bones but also soft tissues such as cartilage or muscles.</p>
<p>This is also the subject of the recently published study <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46030-3"><em>“The level of protein in the maternal murine diet modulates the facial appearance of the offspring via mTORC1 signaling”</em></a>, which appeared in prestigious Nature Communications.</p>
<p>Scientists from the Laboratory of X-ray Computational Micro and Nanotomography at CEITEC, led by Markéta Kaiser, have been collaborating on this study since 2018. The multidisciplinary international team was coordinated by prof. Andrei Chagin from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. <em>“Since then, dozens of samples have been analysed in our laboratory. Our task was not only to create 3D models of cartilage tissue, but also to analyze these 3D models. Here, we have the advantage of being a technical university and working closely with industry in the lab, and so we are using just industrial tools in biological research in a somewhat unconventional way, which is not quite so common and can bring interesting insights into these interdisciplinary studies,”</em> says Markéta Kaiser.</p>
<p>We now know that facial shape and features in mammals are influenced not only by genetics but also by the mother’s lifestyle during pregnancy. It is known that, for example, the consumption of alcohol or other addictive substances can lead to facial abnormalities or developmental disorders. The present study reveals a possible new link between the offspring’s face and pregnancy lifestyle, specifically protein intake during pregnancy.</p>
<p>The study was conducted on mice or mouse embryos. <em>“Specifically, the researchers focused on the mTORC1 signaling pathway, and whether protein content in pregnancy diet affects mTORC1 and plays a role in facial bone structure. Pregnant mice were fed a low- and high-protein diets, then the effect on the aforementioned signalling pathway was investigated and facial development in mouse embryos was compared,“</em> Markéta Kaiser explains the methodology.</p>
<p>It was at this point that X-ray computed tomography analysis played a key role. Scientists from CEITEC BUT created 3D models of the cartilaginous tissue that is the basis for the subsequent development of the face. The differences between embryos from mice having different protein diets were noticeable, albeit very subtle. For example, an enlarged nasal cavity or an elongated jaw were observed. Therefore, the study shows that the amount of protein in the diet can affect mTORC1 and thus the subsequent musculoskeletal development of the individual.</p>
<p>This collaboration certainly does not end with the published article. The researchers already have more projects planned that could help unravel other processes related to more than just facial development.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/CEITEC_Prijem_bilkovin_matky_behem_tehotenstvi_muze_ovlivnit_vyvoj_obliceje_novorozence_e682d5cd06.jpg" alt="CEITEC BUT: 3D cartilage tissue models of mouse embryos created using X-ray computed microtomography. The different colours of the models represent different protein diets."/></p>


Mother’s protein intake during pregnancy can affect newborn’s facial development

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