The Neuron Foundation this year recognised numerous top scientists incl. experts from Charles University. The award for lifelong contribution to science went to Czech internationally-known chemist František Švec from the Faculty of Pharmacy. CU also clinched awards for promising scientists.
This year's Neuron Prize laureates with ties to CU (from left): František Švec, Lenka Slavíková, Kateřina Rohlenová, and Martin Kozák.
• The main Neuron Award for 2023 for a lifelong contribution to the field of chemistry for the development of advanced porous polymers and their application in analytical chemistry and separation science was awarded to Professor František Švec.
František Švec became internationally renowned for inventing porous polymers in the form of monoliths, materials that have found wide applications worldwide, especially in the field of separation techniques. “My great advantage is that I'm not a 'pure' analytical chemist, and I've always operated at the intersection of polymer and analytical chemistry. This combination is not very common. Scientists usually focus on just one area, and so they cannot see the connection between polymers and chromatography,” he stated in a recent interview for Forum. Professor Švec is a graduate of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, and he has worked for many years at prestigious foreign universities, primarily at Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley. Today, as an educator and scientist, he is affiliated with the Faculty of Pharmacy at Charles University.
Last year, he also received a golden commemorative medal for his significant contributions to the development of Charles University. “I see it as an acknowledgment of the entire team, postdocs, students, colleagues, collaborators, because without them, I would be nothing. This is not false modesty, but a fact. In today's scientific world, you cannot achieve anything on your own. Natural sciences do not favour individuals too much - you need a team, a laboratory, and, above all, funds. And how to acquire them, that's something you also need to learn,” he emphasised during the award ceremony and in our interview at Forum CZ.
The Neuron Awards for promising scientists in 2023 were received by:
• Kateřina Rohlenová, a graduate of the Faculty of Science, Charles University - in the field of medicine for her research on tumour cells.
Kateřina Rohlenová investigates the metabolism of healthy and tumour cells and is interested in how these cells communicate with each other. She has an ambitious goal of identifying the Achilles' heel of cancer cells. This could lead to the development of new therapeutic approaches. “I never for a second considered any other career; I didn't have a Plan B,” she said in a previous interview for the Forum magazine CZ. Kateřina Rohlenová, a graduate of Charles University, leads her own research group at the Biotechnology Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the BIOCEV centre.
• Martin Kozák – from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University - in the field of physics for achievements in electron research and optical phenomena.
Martin Kozák studies interactions between electrons and light waves. Last year, he also received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant for research into new possibilities of electron microscopy, allowing the observation of electron movement in materials with high spatial and temporal resolution. “We aim to develop a tool for researching new materials for faster electronics and information transfer,” he explained in an interview for Forum CZ last year.
• Lenka Slavíková – from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University - in the field of mathematics for the study of mathematical functions.
Lenka Slavíková specialises in functional analysis. This mathematical discipline explores infinite dimensions, which is hard to imagine for laypeople, but the methods of functional analysis help solve many problems beyond mathematics, such as in biology and economics.
Neuron Awards for promising scientists also went to:
• Sylvie Graf from the Institute of Psychology of the Czech Academy of Sciences - in the field of social sciences for the study of social interactions.
• Zuzana Kúkelová from the Czech Technical University in Prague - in the field of computer science for research in computer vision.
• Tomáš Slanina from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences - in the field of chemistry for research results in light-controlled chemical processes.
• Martin Schwarzer from the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences - in the field of biology for research on the impact of bacteria on the growth of mammal offspring.
The Neuron Award for bridging science and business was presented to the spin-off company Lipidica, led by Professor Michal Holčapek and his colleagues Ondřej Peterka and Zdeněk Jirsa. They devised a method for detecting pancreatic cancer from a single drop of blood. The company's goal is to carry out a successful clinical study and subsequently implement the detection of pancreatic cancer from a blood test into practice, which could represent a fundamental breakthrough in diagnosis.
