Achievements

Horizontal mitochondrial transfer (HMT) presents a phenomenon where mitochondria move between cells including mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), in most cases with a functional impact for the cell that obtains mitochondria and, sometimes, also for the cell that loses these organelles. This phenomenon has been uncovered relatively recently, with first reports in the 90s of the last century.

Researchers from the Faculty of Science at Charles University, three institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IMG, IBT and IOCB), BIOCEV and CEITEC have made a remarkable advancement in understanding how cells regulate their inner framework. In a study recently published in Nature Communications, the team has uncovered the precise molecular mechanisms behind the protein MICAL1, which plays a crucial role in maintaining cell shape and movement. ...

A team of scientists from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IBT CAS) and the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IEM CAS), supported by colleagues at the Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM), has made significant strides in understanding how the brain recovers after a stroke. ...

One of the main challenges of contemporary medicine is posed by the resistance of pathogens to antibiotics. An important step in countering it has now been made by researchers from IOCB Prague, in collaboration with colleagues from the Institute of Microbiology and the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. ...

Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, along with the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University and the National Institute for Cancer Research at the BIOCEV center, have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding regenerative cells that could significantly enhance wound healing processes. Their findings suggest that wounds can heal without scarring, contingent upon the presence of Regeneration Initiation Cells (RICs).

The Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (BTÚ) has achieved significant success in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports' Operational Programme Jan Amos Komenský (OP JAK) – Intersectoral Cooperation.

International research team led by Libor Macurek (Institute of Molecular Genetics, Czech Academy of Sciences), Robert Grosse (Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Freiburg) and Zdenek Lansky (Institute of Biotechnology, Czech Academy of Sciences) identified a new mechanism of the crosstalk between microtubules and actin cytoskeleton during cell division. ...

In EMBO’s 60th anniversary year, 100 new Members and 20 Associate Members join the community. One of them is Zdeněk Lánský, head of the Laboratory of Structural Proteins.

The President of the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) together with the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation awarded the five best scientific projects at the 20th anniversary ceremony of the Czech Science Foundation President's Awards yesterday (12 October 2023) at the Martinský Palace. The award recipients from all areas of basic research have contributed to a significant expansion of knowledge in the field and will lead to further applications.

Scientists from the Institute of Biotechnology (BTU) of the CAS at the Biotechnology and Biomedicine Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University (BIOCEV) and the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) have elucidated the crucial role of the NEUROD1 protein in the development of severe diabetes. MODY6 diabetes is a subtype of diabetes caused by a mutation in the neurogenic differentiation factor 1 (NEUROD1) gene. ...

For the excellent results of the project "The role of NEUROD1 and ISL1 in the development of inner ear neurons" Gabriela Pavlínková received an honorary recognition from the President of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (GAČR) last week.

The Dresden International Graduate School for Biomedicine and Bioengineering (DIGS-BB) and four institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic have started a new collaboration on the education of doctoral students.

The most prestigious scientific grant awarded by the European Research Council, the ERC Synergy Grant, goes to the team of Zdenek Lánský from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in the BIOCEV center. With French and American colleagues, he will investigate the function of a protein called tubulin, which is significantly involved in the transport of substances inside cells. ...

He won in the category flash talk at the 24th Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography meeting with his presentation "Effects of the Zn2+ to Cd2+ Exchange on the Structure and Activity of S1 Nuclease".

A new protein that plays a key role during sperm-egg adhesion and fusion has been discovered by an international team led by Kateřina Komrsková from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the BIOCEV Centre and the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague. The researchers also developed special cell cultures for the “production” of human oocyte proteins. ...

An important aspect of fertilisation in mammals is the protein network communication between the egg and sperm. These protein complexes undergo crucial changes and rearrangements during sperm movement through the female reproductive tract, where sperm maturation takes place.

This year, six group leaders have received EMBO Installation Grants. One of them, and the only recipient in the Czech Republic, is Kateřina Rohlenová from the Institute of Biotechnology AS CR in the BIOCEV centre, who is also a recent holder of a prestigious ERC grant.

Mgr. Katerina Rohlenova, Ph.D. from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the BIOCEV Centre has been awarded the most prestigious European scientific grant by the European Research Council (ERC). She will receive EUR 1.5 million (approximately CZK 38 million) over five years for her innovative research into metabolic communication in tumours.

One of the few projects that the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic will support within the JUNIOR STAR competition starting 2022 is project "Intercellular communication of nucleotides: a neglected goal for new anti-cancer approaches".

Excellent scientists have received the Award of the President of the Czech Science Foundation (GACR) for outstanding results in grant projects, which was exceptionally presented this year by GACR Vice President Stanislava Hronová. The prestigious prize for the best basic research was awarded to Zdeněk Lánský (Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

The Institute of Biotechnology (IBT) and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB Prague), both part of the Czech Academy of Sciences, have signed a licensing agreement with the company Immunotech, a subsidiary of Beckman Coulter, for the manufacture and distribution of a newly developed coronavirus antibody IVD test. ...

A new study from the Institute of Biotechnology’s Molecular Therapeutics Laboratory led by Prof. Jiří Neužil in collaboration with Prof. Karel Pacák’s group from the National Institute of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA), which led to the discovery of eight SUCLG2 gene variants in patients with neuroendocrine tumours, puts SUCLG2 on the list of genes whose pathogenic germline variations may increase the risk of cancer development due to misregulation of cellular metabolism. ...

Contractility is an essential biological process enabling cells to divide, move and change their shape. The established understanding of cell contractility is based on the action of myosin motor proteins sliding actin filaments relative to each other. ...

On the 1st of July 2021 the molecular-scale biophysics EU programme MOSBRI commences operation.

Recently we have proposed “Non-cognate Ligand Strategy (NCLS) as a promising approach for the development of scaffold-derived epitope-mimicking proteins as vaccine immunogens. To support this approach, we developed a set of proteins called Myomedins that stimulated production of HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies in immunized mice. These variants mimic gp41/Env epitope recognized by broadly neutralizing antibody 10E8 and have potential to serve as HIV-1 vaccine components. ...

The team of the Laboratory of Tumour Resistance and Service technology laboratory (both Institute of Biotechnology, Czech Academy of Sciences (IBT, CAS) has developed a novel anti-cancer drug that interferes with mitochondrial iron metabolism. ...

The European Union’s Horizon 2020 INFRAIA programme has awarded a 5 M€ infrastructure grant to MOSBRI (Molecular-Scale Biophysics Research Infrastructure www.mosbri.eu), a consortium of 13 academic centres of excellence and 2 industrial partners from 11 different European countries, coordinated by Institut Pasteur (Paris, France).

The research team of Dr. Kateřina Komrsková from the Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic at the BIOCEV centre, which studies causes of infertility, has filed two international patents that are of key importance for the advancement of assisted reproduction. The first patent documents how to determine sperm quality with extreme accuracy. ...

At the end of last year, the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) completed an evaluation of project proposals accepted for public tender in research, experimental development and innovation to support basic research grant projects.

The Biological Laboratory of the ELIBIO project at ELI Beamlines was officially opened 20th of January 2021 by Robert Plaga the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, Eva Zažímalová the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Michael Prouza Director of the Insitute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Three international research teams succeded in elucidation of a unique molecular mechanism, which enables bacteria, including pathogens, to maintain the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA. The discovery leads to new possibilities of development of the much needed antimicrobials against serious pathogens, including the causative agent of tuberculosis. Their discoveries have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

We report on a unique glass microfluidic Y-system with planar immunocapture channel working in so-called stop-flow dynamic regime.

Our study on interactions between human PSMA and an RNA-based aptamer on Nucl Acid Res cover page

We have published a unique automated methods of nucleic acid classification and annotation.

Cerebral stroke is one of the leading causes of death and long-term disability worldwide. It affects primarily the elderly population and is typically recognized as a disease associated with aging. However, it remains unknown how such an age-dependent vulnerability develops, and what are the underlying mechanisms. ...

This year's Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine goes to the Americans William G. Kaelin and Gregg L. Semenza and the British Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, whose discoveries made it possible to understand the essence of one of the key adaptive systems for human and other animal life. They have discovered the molecular mechanisms by which cells sense and respond to available oxygen levels.

Increased level of bilirubin, product of red blood cells metabolism, in blood can be symptomatic for liver diseases, such as cirrhosis or hepatitis, or for bile duct diseases.

AIDS is one of the most serious diseases having claimed more than 35 million lives so far.

The sympathetic nervous system plays a critical role in stimulating heart rate and contractility to increase cardiac output and thereby insure adequate tissue O2 delivery. Altered sympathetic output contributes to cardiac pathologies, such as sudden cardiac death ...

Sensory systems develop primary topographic maps of sensory inputs that are projected by sensory neurons to the brain, for example topographical maps of the skin and retina, somatosensory space, and auditory tonotopic map according to sound frequency.

Researchers from the Institute of Biotechnology of the ASCR at the BIOCEV recently showed that cancer cells with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) disorders must regain respiration by "stealing" mitochondria with undamaged mtDNA from surrounding, non-cancerous cells after introduction into laboratory mice.

Scientists from the BIOCEV Research Center in Vestec near Prague tried to answer the question of the relationship between infertility and diabetes, and how diabetes also affects reproduction in subsequent generations.

Czech scientists have never been this close to finding a cure for breast cancer. After four years, they have succeeded in developing an agent that can entirely destroy cells of one of the most aggressive forms of cancer. In the Czech Republic, up to 20% of all breast cancer patients suffer from this form of cancer. The preparation, called MitoTam, has successfully passed laboratory tests and clinical trials. This year, human clinical trials are planned to be launched.

On September 22, 2016 the INSTRUCT Council unanimously agreed to grant the Czech Infrastructure for Integrative Structural Biology (CIISB) the status of a full INSTRUCT centre. This enormous success enables to offer the services of the BIOCEV Centre of Molecular Structure (CMS) and of the CEITEC Structural Biology Core Facilities officially under the auspices of the INSTRUCT research infrastructure.

Publisher of prestigious magazine Antioxidants & Redox Signaling (IF 8,499 in last 5 years) has decided to put on the cover of this magazine's Volume 22 (No. 11) a photography from a research article written, among others, by researchers from The Institute of Biotechnology CAS, v. v. i.

Cell division is one of the basic mechanisms that take place in all living organisms ceaselessly. Its malfunction causes severe disorders such as hereditary diseases or cancer. International team of researchers from Czech Republic, Germany and Netherlands was able to replenish another piece of the puzzle of molecular mechanisms that are important to understand how cell division works. They have informed about their discovery in prestigious research magazine Cell.

A tumor cell with no mitochondrial DNA, which is essential for cell function, is able to obtain mitochondria from another cell, thus restarting respiratory function and renew its tumorous potential. According to web portal IFLScience, this is a discovery that will "rewrite textbooks".