On behalf of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT Prague, Czech Republic) and Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), part of Wageningen University &amp; Research (The Netherlands), we are delighted to invite all food scientists from academia and industry and representatives of national and international agencies, control authorities, governmental and commercial laboratories to attend the 10th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Food Analysis (RAFA 2022).
<h3>Registration for RAFA 2022 is OPEN.</h3>
<h4>👉<a href="https://www.rafa2022.eu/registration.html">Register here</a></h4>
<h5>After successful submission of your registration, you will receive by e-mail:</h5>
<ul>
<li>(i) an automatic confirmation of receipt indicating the total amount of payment due (either for bank transfer or for on-line payment by card),</li>
<li>(ii) login to Member section where you can administrate your profile, submit your abstracts, and from July 2022 register for satellite workshops and seminars.</li>
</ul>
As soon as payment of registration fee is processed, you will also receive by e-mail (iii) confirmation of payment.
<blockquote>
<h5>Deadlines for registration</h5>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>May 15, 2022: Deadline to apply for Young researcher travel grant</li>
<li>June 15, 2022: Reduced registration fee deadline</li>
<li>July 15, 2022: Deadline to apply for participation as a Sponsor or Exhibitor</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h5>The regular registration fee will include:</h5>
<ul>
<li>Attendance at all scientific sessions, workshops, seminars, vendor seminars and other satellite events</li>
<li>Access to the poster and exhibition area</li>
<li>Conference kit (name badge, conference bag, conference documents, certificate of participation, certificate of presentation on request)</li>
<li>Final programme</li>
<li>E-Book of abstracts</li>
<li>Coffee breaks</li>
<li>Buffet luncheons</li>
<li>Welcome drink</li>
</ul>
<h3>RAFA 2022 PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE – General schedule (tentative)</h3>
The scientific committee and the organizers of the 10th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Food Analysis (RAFA 2022) aim to prepare a balanced program with many top quality presentations followed by stimulating discussions, several satellite events, a large state-of-the-art exhibition and an attractive social program. Scientific contributions will be presented by leading scientists through keynote lectures and by contributed oral and poster presentations.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/RAFA_RAFA_2022_PROGRAMME_AT_A_GLANCE_4fa7c1acf9/RAFA-RAFA-2022-PROGRAMME-AT-A-GLANCE.webp" alt="RAFA: RAFA 2022 PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE"/>
<h3>INVITED SPEAKERS</h3>
<ul>
<li>Prof. Chiara Dall&#39;Asta, University of Parma, Italy</li>
<li>Dr. Vincent Baeten, Walloon Agricultural Research Centre, Gembloux, Belgium</li>
<li>Prof. Jacob de Boer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Prof. Christopher Elliott, Queen&#39;s University Belfast, Belfast, Great Britain</li>
<li>Dr. Carsten Fauhl-Hassek, Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Berlin, Germany</li>
<li>Prof. Jana Hajslova, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czech Republic</li>
<li>Prof. Amadeo R Fernández-Alba, European Union Reference Laboratory for Pesticide Residues in Fruit &amp; Vegetables, Universidad de Almería, Almería, Spain</li>
<li>Dr. Christoph von Holst, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Geel, Belgium</li>
<li>Prof. Hans-Gerd Janssen, Unilever Research and Development, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Prof. Christian W. Klampfl, Institute of Analytical and General Chemistry/Department of General Chemistry Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria</li>
<li>Prof. Jacob van Klaveren, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Prof. Achim Kohler, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), As, Norway </li>
<li>Prof.Rudolf Krska, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, IFA-Tulln, Austria</li>
<li>Dr. Stefan van Leeuwen, Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), part of Wageningen University &amp; Research, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Dr. Katerina Mastovska, Eurofins Scientific, US Food Division, United States</li>
<li>Prof. Clare Mills, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom</li>
<li>Dr. Hans Mol, Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR), part of Wageningen University &amp; Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Dr. Nicola Randall, Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire, United Kingdom</li>
<li>Dr. Josep Rubert, Wageningen University &amp; Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands</li>
<li>Prof. Michael Rychlik, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany</li>
<li>Prof. Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany</li>
<li>Prof. Jens Sloth, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark</li>
<li>Dr. Michele Suman, Barilla Food Research Labs, Parma, Italy</li>
<li>Dr. Frans Verstraete, European Commission, DG Health and Consumers (DG SANTE), Brussels, Belgium</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<a href="https://www.rafa2022.eu/speakers.html">Details and CVs of speakers and the overview of challenging topics to be presented.</a>
</blockquote>
<h3>WORKSHOPS &amp; SESSIONS ON NOVEL CHALLENGES</h3>
<ul>
<li>Workshop on &quot;Vibrational spectroscopy and chemometrics&quot;</li>
<li>Workshop on &quot;Analysis of contaminants &amp; migrants in circular food production&quot;</li>
<li>Tutorial on &quot;Data quality and smart data handling in food analysis&quot;</li>
</ul>
<h3>INTERACTIVE SEMINAR: BE ACTIVE AND LEARN FROM EACH OTHER</h3>
<ul>
<li>Step by step strategies for fast development of smart analytical methods</li>
</ul>
<h3>EU REFERENCE LABORATORIES COLLOQUIUM</h3>
<ul>
<li>Workshop on &quot;Experiences, achievements and challenges of EU Reference Laboratories&quot;</li>
</ul>
<h3>VENDOR SEMINARS &amp; EXHIBITION</h3>
<ul>
<li>Vendor seminars introducing recent instrumentation and analytical strategies for advanced food quality and safety control</li>
<li>Exhibition of modern instrumentation, laboratory equipment, chemicals and consumables</li>
</ul>
<h3>SPONSORS, EXHIBITORS, MEDIA PARTNERS</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=10">Agilent Technologies LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=10">Agilent Technologies GCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=3">Thermo Fisher Scientific LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=3">Thermo Fisher Scientific GCMS</a>
</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/RAFA_RAFA_2022_GOLD_SPONSORS_903eacef3f/RAFA-RAFA-2022-GOLD-SPONSORS.webp" alt="RAFA: RAFA 2022 GOLD SPONSORS"/>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=5">Waters Corporation LCMS</a></li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=5">Waters Corporation GCMS</a></li>
</ul>
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/RAFA_RAFA_2022_SILVER_SPONSORS_eba74731e1/RAFA-RAFA-2022-SILVER-SPONSORS.webp" alt="RAFA: RAFA 2022 SILVER SPONSORS"/>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=11">Axel Semrau LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=11">Axel Semrau GCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=8">Bruker Daltonics LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=8">Bruker Daltonics GCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=7">Restek LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=7">Restek GCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=52">Syft Technologies LCMS</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?mainauthorItems=52">Syft Technologies GCMS</a>
</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/RAFA_RAFA_2022_BRONZE_SPONSORS_587b47e3af/RAFA-RAFA-2022-BRONZE-SPONSORS.webp" alt="RAFA: RAFA 2022 BRONZE SPONSORS"/>
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/RAFA_RAFA_2022_MEDIA_PARTNERS_e4c11fc4ec/RAFA-RAFA-2022-MEDIA-PARTNERS.webp" alt="RAFA: RAFA 2022 MEDIA PARTNERS"/>

RAFA 2022 - REGISTRATION & Invited speakers

An international team of scientists led by Tomáš Pluskal from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) has introduced a new generation of software enabling scientists to analyze large volumes of data from mass spectrometry, a technique that separates chemicals by their weights. The open-source project MZmine provides a new window into the chemical space that surrounds us and lives within. The latest advances in <a href="http://mzmine.github.io/">MZmine 3</a> are now published in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-01690-2">Nature Biotechnology</a> paper.
<h3>Challenges of biochemical analysis</h3>
Analytical chemists of the world, unite! This paraphrase could characterize the joint efforts of scientists across the globe, who, using the methods of mass spectrometry, strive to decipher and analyze the chemical composition of complex samples from various origins, especially in biological and clinical studies. Each individual sample can contain hundreds of thousands of different chemical compounds that scientists need to trace, quantify, and identify to understand their impact on human health or their ecological role.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Robin_Schmid_Pocet_spustni_modulu_M_Zmine_v_letech_2017_2022_152c3eae85/UOCHB-Robin-Schmid-Pocet-spustni-modulu-MZmine-v-letech-2017-2022.jpg" alt="IOCB Prague/Robin Schmid: MZmine module runs in 2017–2022 (in millions)"/>
Even relatively small studies result in gigabytes of ‘raw’ data to be processed and interpreted. It is the processing, analysis, and comparison of a multitude of molecular data that constitutes some of the most challenging steps in biochemical analysis today. This is also a major bottleneck that limits the ability of scientists to expand knowledge and come up with exciting new discoveries.
<h3>Community-driven development</h3>
For this reason, a group of international scientists started in 2005 to develop the open-source software MZmine to aid the analysis of mass spectrometry data. The community developing this software has been co-established by Czech scientist <a href="https://pluskal.group.uochb.cz/en">Tomáš Pluskal</a>, who has been coordinating the project almost since its inception and is currently a group leader at IOCB Prague.
“The greatest strength of the MZmine project is the international community of experts that has formed around the project. At conferences, presentations on MZmine are always well received,” says Tomáš Pluskal about the project.
Robin Schmid from IOCB Prague and UC San Diego (CA, USA), one of the first authors of the paper, adds: “It&#39;s fantastic when we meet researchers from other countries for the first time and they tell us that MZmine and our support has saved their PhD thesis or projects. That&#39;s the best appreciation one can hope for.”
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Tomas_Bellon_Tomas_Pluskal_vlevo_a_Robin_Schmid_oba_z_UOCHB_92138f0c1d/UOCHB-Tomas-Bellon-Tomas-Pluskal-(vlevo)-a-Robin-Schmid-(oba-z-UOCHB).jpg" alt="IOCB Prague/Tomáš Belloň: Tomáš Pluskal (left) and Robin Schmid (both from IOCB Prague)"/>
The first version of MZmine has enabled scientists to automate the processing of datasets generated by analytical devices at an unprecedented scale. The second generation of MZmine, released in 2010, made the project more widely known and led to the formation of a worldwide community of researchers using the software and continuing to expand its functions with additional modules and applications. The publication introducing the second generation of MZmine has since collected more than 2,200 citations in scientific articles and the tool itself has been used to process millions of different measurements.
<h3>Third generation</h3>
The newest MZmine 3 brings several major improvements. Whereas the previous version allowed scientists to analyze hundreds of samples in a matter of days, the new generation makes it possible to process thousands of samples per hour. Besides vastly accelerating data processing, the new version of the software can also be used, for the first time, to link different data types, especially time-resolved and imaging data.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Nature_Biotechnology_M_Zmine_open_source_komunitni_projekt_pro_integrativni_zpracovani_dat_LC_IMS_MS_a_IMS_MS_6d9b3759d1/UOCHB-Nature-Biotechnology-MZmine-open-source-komunitni-projekt-pro-integrativni-zpracovani-dat-LC-IMS-MS-a-IMS-MS.jpg" alt="IOCB PRague/Nature Biotechnology: MZmine, an open-source community project for integrative LC–IMS–MS and IMS–MS data processing"/>
This opens up opportunities for researchers to more easily analyze and interpret complex biological samples. MZmine is a tool to investigate the causes and mechanisms of diseases, detecting useful clinical biomarkers for diagnostics and identifying chemicals in the environment. This includes previously unknown chemical structures, which might prove valuable for the discovery and development of new drugs for medical applications.
The third generation of MZmine was announced in a paper prepared, besides Tomáš Pluskal as the corresponding author, by the first authors Robin Schmid (IOCB Prague and UC San Diego), and Steffen Heuckeroth and Ansgar Korf (both from University of Münster, Germany), joined by over three dozen other contributors from around the world.
“MZmine has established itself as a trusted tool for mass spectrometry researchers over the past decade. Its modular framework has fostered community participation in the development of the MZmine code, leading to significant advancements featured in the newly released MZmine 3,” says Ansgar Korf of University of Münster.
The development of the MZmine project has been supported by the Czech Science Foundation (project No. 21-11563M).
<ul>
<li>Literature for using the MZmine software <a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?search=MZmine">in the LabRulezLCMS library</a></li>
<li>Literature for using the MZmine software <a href="https://gcms.labrulez.com/library?search=MZmine">in the LabRulezGCMS library</a></li>
</ul>

A breakthrough in big data processing helps trace chemicals in complex mixtures

Scientists gathered around the international software project <a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/library?search=MZmine">MZmine</a>, led by Dr. Robin Schmid and <a href="https://pluskal.group.uochb.cz/en">Dr. Tomáš Pluskal</a> from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, have come up with a new piece of software that significantly speeds up and simplifies the identification of chemicals in tissues. It enables researchers to confidently recognize chemicals and visualize their distribution in organs. Compared to established workflows, the new pipeline requires less work in the laboratory to gain similar insights into the chemistry happening within, for example, tumours and inflammatory lesions. The paper presenting this software to the global scientific community has just been published in the influential scientific journal Nature Communications.
At IOCB Prague, Dr. Robin Schmid is mostly involved in developing the software SIMSEF (spatial ion mobility-scheduled exhaustive fragmentation) together with his colleagues from the group of Prof. Dr. Karst at the University of Münster, Germany, where he was previously based. The work is done in collaboration with the developers of the timsTOF fleX state-of-the-art mass spectrometer from Bruker Daltonics, which enables high-level elucidation of the composition of molecules by measuring the mobility of ions.
‘Up until now, scientists could tell with a mass spectrometer that this was the formula of the molecule they were looking at, but then when they looked at the database and tried to identify this substance, it was very difficult. The reason is that biological samples can contain numerous distinct lipids and combinations of molecules that are often biologically very different. Now, thanks to the new algorithm, it is possible to look inside the molecule, learn what it is made up of and even compare images with each other,’ explains Robin Schmid. This can provide important information, for example that a specific part of the brain contains a different type of lipid than another part of this essential organ and that this particular lipid is absent in other tissue.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Nova_zobrazovaci_metoda_biologickych_vzorku_pomuze_vedcum_a_lekarum_rychleji_identifikovat_napriklad_rakovinne_tkane_Dr_Tomas_Pluskal_c1948c1c8b/UOCHB-Nova-zobrazovaci-metoda-biologickych-vzorku-pomuze-vedcum-a-lekarum-rychleji-identifikovat-napriklad-rakovinne-tkane-Dr.Tomas-Pluskal.jpg" alt="IOCB Prague/Tomáš Belloň: A new imaging method for biological samples will help scientists and doctors to more quickly identify, for example, cancerous tissue"/>
The SIMSEF algorithm was developed in collaboration with medical experts from German and Swiss universities. Crucially for medical doctors, the detection of clinical biomarkers for diagnostic purposes is also significantly accelerated. Learning very quickly, for example, whether they are dealing with a lipid or metabolite that is only found in cancerous tissue plays a critical role in deciding on further treatment. Needless to say, this has great implications for its outcome.
The new algorithm is part of the open-source software package MZmine, which has been helping experts worldwide to analyse mass spectrometry data since 2005. Steffen Heuckeroth from the MZmine team and the Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry at the University of Münster has been the main developer of the SIMSEF algorithm and is the first author of the paper now published in Nature Communications. He adds: ‘The article in question does not contain any specific discovery in the field of biology. However, thanks to our new method, many scientists can improve and accelerate their work, which opens up room for new discoveries.’
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Nova_zobrazovaci_metoda_biologickych_vzorku_pomuze_vedcum_a_lekarum_rychleji_identifikovat_napriklad_rakovinne_tkane_ce3d99705c/UOCHB-Nova-zobrazovaci-metoda-biologickych-vzorku-pomuze-vedcum-a-lekarum-rychleji-identifikovat-napriklad-rakovinne-tkane.jpg" alt="ÚOCHB/Tomáš Belloň: Nová zobrazovací metoda biologických vzorků pomůže vědcům a lékařům rychleji identifikovat například rakovinné tkáně"/>
‘I always think it&#39;s great when we enable other people to improve the working conditions for their research and also to communicate it to other scientists. Thanks to the feedback from the scientific community using MZmine, the program itself directly pushes their research forward,’ adds Robin Schmid from IOCB Prague.
The director of IOCB Prague Prof. Jan Konvalinka points out: ‘Everybody is talking about machine learning and artificial intelligence these days. Our colleagues from Dr. Pluskal’s team are using it to solve highly specific problems in research as well as in clinical praxis.’
The third generation of MZmine, <a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/article/2726">reported</a> in spring 2023 in the journal Nature Biotechnology, can process thousands of samples per hour. The algorithms newly developed by this international team thus further enhance existing capabilities to link different types of data, including combining data from analytical and imaging methods, which until now has not been possible with any academic or commercial software.

A new imaging method for biological samples will help scientists and doctors to more quickly identify, for example, cancerous tissue

Scientists from the IOCB Prague, the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Palacký University Olomouc, have once again successfully uncovered the mysteries of the world of molecules and atoms. They have experimentally confirmed the correctness of a decades-old theory that assumed a non-uniform distribution of electron density in aromatic molecules. This phenomenon significantly affects the physicochemical properties of molecules and their interactions. This research expands the possibilities for designing new nanomaterials and is the theme of a paper that has just been published in Nature Communications.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Scientists_continue_to_push_the_boundaries_of_imaging_techniques_and_reveal_the_mysterious_world_of_molecules_Experimental_measurements_35db678a3f.jpg" alt="IOCB Prague: Scientists continue to push the boundaries of imaging techniques and reveal the mysterious world of molecules. Experimental measurements confirmed the theoretical predictions of the existence of the π-hole. From left to right: Chemical structure of the investigated molecule, calculated electrostatic potential map of the molecule, experimental Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) image, and simulated KPFM image."/>
The same team of authors in its previous groundbreaking study published in Science described the non-uniform distribution of electrons in an atom, the so-called σ-hole. Now the researchers have confirmed the existence of the so-called π-hole. In aromatic hydrocarbons, we find electrons in clouds above and below the plane of carbon atoms. If we replace the peripheral hydrogens with more electronegative atoms or groups of atoms that pull electrons away, the originally negatively charged clouds turn into positively charged electron holes.
Scientists have taken the advanced method of scanning electron microscopy and pushed its capabilities further. The method works at subatomic resolution and can therefore image not only atoms in molecules but also the structure of the electron shell of an atom. As one of the researchers involved, Bruno de la Torre from the Czech Advanced Technology and Research Institute (CATRIN) of Palacký University Olomouc, points out, the success of the experiment described here is mainly due to the excellent facilities at his home institution and the participation of excellent Ph.D. students.
&quot;Thanks to our previous experience with the Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) technique, we have been able to refine our measurements and acquire very complete data sets that have helped us to deepen our understanding not only of how the charge is distributed in the molecules but also of what observables are obtained with the technique,&quot; says Bruno de la Torre.
Modern force microscopy has long been the domain of researchers at the Institute of Physics. Not only in the case of molecular structures have they used the unprecedented spatial resolution to the full. Some time ago they confirmed the existence of a non-uniform distribution of electron density around halogen atoms, the so-called σ-holes. This achievement was published in 2021 by Science. The former as well as current research was significantly contributed to by one of the most cited Czech scientists of today, Prof. <a href="https://hobza.group.uochb.cz/en">Pavel Hobza</a> from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague).
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/UOCHB_Scientists_continue_to_push_the_boundaries_of_imaging_techniques_and_reveal_the_mysterious_world_of_molecules_Prof_Pavel_Hobza_1119814488.jpg" alt="IOCB Prague / Tomáš Belloň: Scientists continue to push the boundaries of imaging techniques and reveal the mysterious world of molecules. Prof. Pavel Hobza, Distinguished Chair &amp; head of the Non-Covalent Interactions group at IOCB Prague."/>
&quot;The confirmation of the existence of the π-hole, as well as the σ-hole before it, fully demonstrates the quality of the theoretical predictions of quantum chemistry, which have accounted for both phenomena for decades. It shows that they can be relied upon even in the absence of available experiments,&quot; says Pavel Hobza.
The results of Czech scientists’ research at the subatomic and submolecular levels can be compared to the discovery of cosmic black holes. They had also been theorized for decades before their existence was confirmed by experiments.
A better knowledge of the distribution of the electron charge will help the scientific community to understand many chemical and biological processes in the first place. On a practical level, it will translate into the ability to build new supramolecules and subsequently into the development of advanced nanomaterials with improved properties.

Scientists continue to push the boundaries of imaging techniques and reveal the mysterious world of molecules

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?
<h5>Prague, Brno and Ostrava are all proud of your work. How far can we say the “Pumera Group” stretches?</h5>
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.
<h5>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?</h5>
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).
<h5>What do you complain about?</h5>
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.
<h5>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?</h5>
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.
<h5>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?</h5>
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.
<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?"/>
<h5>Roughly how many people are we talking about?</h5>
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.
<h5>Are you still in contact with them? Do you know who’s working where and what they’re doing?</h5>
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.
<h5>And do you call them stars?</h5>
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.
<h5>Where specifically are your former students working now?</h5>
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.
<h5>Do you have Czech students in your group?</h5>
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.
<h5>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.</h5>
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.
<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?"/>
<h5>What does a student learn with you?</h5>
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.
<h5>Who inspires you?</h5>
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.
<h5>What’s the first piece of advice that comes to mind?</h5>
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.
<h5>How did he explain himself?</h5>
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.
<h5>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?</h5>
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.
<h5>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?</h5>
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.
<h5>You have authored an incredible 900 scientific papers, which is unique. What’s your driving force?</h5>
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.
<h5>Do you have time for any hobbies?</h5>
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.
<h5>How long did it take your wife to stop complaining about your working late?</h5>
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.
<h5>Do your kids want to go into science too?</h5>
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.
<h5>You have celebrated your 50th birthday. Did you take stock?</h5>
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.
<h5>What’s your biggest accolade? Besides your successful students?</h5>
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.

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

The TRILAB DeltiQ 2, 3D printer from the Brno-Hradec Králové company TRILAB is a high-quality 3D printer from the so-called pro-sumer segment of the desktop 3D printer category. It is a printer completely developed by TRILAB, designed and built only from high-end components. Its hardware and software is adapted and tuned for short, but also multi-day prints even without the presence of an operator. Thanks to the remote-control software and the built-in camera with lighting, the user is constantly in control of printing. Also in the case of ambiguity, question or problem, the printer is immediately remotely diagnosed by the TRILAB service team.
Thanks to the technical and application support of the TRILAB team and also thanks to the many years of experience of the two main partners of TRILAB in the field of science and research, where Dr. Vojtěch Tambor is originally the leading researcher in the laboratory of the Center for Biomedical Research (CBV) of the University Hospital HK and Dr. Michal Boháč is a former director of Bruker s.r.o., every scientific customer is always perfectly professionally secured and can thus focus only on solving their own challenges and projects.
Thanks to practical experience with placing 3D printers in research laboratories, TRILAB also knows very well that the DeltiQ 3D printer does not only allow its owners to save time and money in producing things that are familiar and hard to reach, but also and above all to create and quickly test completely new things, not yet discovered. In addition, it allows them to be pampered by the quality of the printing surface, spatial accuracy, huge print volumes or even just the grace of delta kinematics movements. In addition, the customer does not have to buy the printer as an investment, but can rent it or cleverly buy it under an initial operating lease with a possible subsequent purchase. This not only divides the financial costs of its acquisition over a longer period, but also avoids possible lengthy approval processes for investment purchases.
The DeltiQ 3D printer will become a great help in your research project. Whether it&#39;s simple holders or specialized components, with a 3D printer you can save not only most acquisition costs, but also a lot of time spent looking for a suitable tool. In addition, you can create tools that you cannot buy as they do not exist! And besides tools, you can also create your own prototypes, products or their models and replacements.
<h3>The story of <a href="https://www.nenovision.com/">NenoVision</a>: Thanks to 3D printing, our microscope can be touched safely</h3>
NenoVision is a start-up originating from the Central European Institute of Technology CEITEC and is one of the incubated companies in the South Moravian Innovation Center JIC INMEC. They are proud that their LiteScope microscope is the only one in the world that can combine data from an electron microscope and an atomic force microscope in detail and assemble them into 3D models. It literally opens up a new dimension of research.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/Trilab_Neno_Vision_mikroskop_1_6b79421014/Trilab-NenoVision-mikroskop-1.jpg" alt="TRILAB: NenoVision - model of LiteScope microscope printed on the TRILAB DeltiQ printer"/>
The company found the application of 3D printing in solving the problem of how to enable the &quot;touch&quot; of the microscope to partners, customers and the professional public: &quot;LiteScope normally works in a controlled environment, moreover in a vacuum, and it is a sensitive and very expensive device. Therefore we or our distributors cannot normally carry it to all events and exhibitions, nor provide it to our partners for tests for insertion into their machines,” explains Jan Neumann, the owner and CEO of NenoVision.
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/Trilab_Neno_Vision_mikroskop_2_8d96758735/Trilab-NenoVision-mikroskop-2.jpg" alt="TRILAB: NenoVision - model of LiteScope microscope printed on the TRILAB DeltiQ printer"/>
Machining the individual components of the microscope itself is so expensive that even making a copy of the instrument without &quot;living&quot; components does not make sense. In the end, 3D printing proved to be an elegant solution: “Since the complete 3D model for production was already ready, it was enough to prepare and print it on a TRILAB DeltiQ printer and the model of the device in perfect quality and accuracy was born. In this way, it can be easily reproduced and shown to customers and the public at a fraction of the normal cost,” adds Jan Neumann. 
<h3><a href="https://www.biocev.eu/en">BIOCEV</a> story: Own online nanospray built in a few days?</h3>
The story of <a href="http://peterslab.org">Dr. Petr Novák</a> from BIOCEV shows the second group of 3D printing options. Building something that does not exist, that you cannot buy, and you know what it should look like and you need it. Dr. Novák&#39;s team happened to be in exactly the same situation. Commercially available nanosprays did not meet the requirements not only in terms of compatibility with available spectrometers, but also in terms of real sensitivity, essential for measurement. That&#39;s why the &quot;Do it yourself&quot; mode came into play. Thanks to the clever use of 3D printing, a nanospray was created, which has ncomparably higher sensitivity and operator comfort compared to all commercial devices available on the market. 
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/Trilab_BIOCEV_online_nanosprej_1_ac1e93326c/Trilab-BIOCEV-online-nanosprej-1.jpg" alt="TriLab: BIOCEV - online nanospray"/>
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/Trilab_BIOCEV_online_nanosprej_2_ba9dbfde99/Trilab-BIOCEV-online-nanosprej-2.jpg" alt="TriLab: BIOCEV - online nanospray"/>
<h3>The story of the MALDI-TOF plate suitable not only for affinity chromatography</h3>
As part of the projects of AffiPro, a spin-off company under BIOCEV Prague, it has been running for several years under the leadership of Dr. Petr Novák and Dr. Petr Pompach for the development of clinical applications of affinity chromatography on MALDI-TOF spectrometry, for example MALDI Biotyper devices, by patented application of various antibodies to MALDI plates using the so-called soft ion landing technology. Although this is a technology that is just beginning and commercial use is yet to come, they already have several very interesting surfaces on their own chips in the laboratory, which will be interesting in the future not only for clinical and veterinary, but also for military screening. And thanks to the use of 3D printing technology, they have the opportunity to print not only different surfaces and shapes, but also to use different materials on MALDI chips and thus, for example, increase the sensitivity and detection limits of the method. 
<img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/Trilab_Affi_Pro_MALDI_TOF_desticka_836e1e69b7/Trilab-AffiPro-MALDI-TOF-desticka.png" alt="TriLab: AffiPro/BIOCEV - MALDI-TOF chip for affinity chromatography"/>
The original article <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01737">Three-Dimensional Printed Target Plates for Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry ke stažení.</a>

TRILAB 3D printing solutions and DeltiQ 2 printers are in the lab at home

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RAFA provides an overview of contemporary trends in ANALYTICAL & BIOANALYTICAL STRATEGIES IN FOOD QUALITY AND SAFETY CONTROL and discusses CHALLENGES / NOVEL APPROACHES IN FOOD AND NATURAL PRODUCTS ANALYSIS.

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Since its establishment in 2011, CEITEC has quickly developed into a cutting-edge infrastructure for research which performs highly alongside the best institutes in Europe. Among the main priorities of CEITEC are the promotion of a motivating and dynamic international scientific environment, the provision of state-of-the-art research infrastructure, and the policy of open communication and equal opportunities.

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The Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) is a leading scientific institution in the Czech Republic, recognized internationally. Its primary mission is basic research in the fields of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry, organic and material oriented chemistry, chemistry of natural compounds, biochemistry and molecular biology, physical chemistry, theoretical chemistry, and analytical chemistry. 

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