IMTM board

I earned my M.Sc. in Biology and Ecology from Faculty of Sciences Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. I worked as a Clinical Research Specialist for several pharmaceutical and contract research companies, including Icon Clinical Research, MerckSerono, AstraZeneca in Czech Republic and other European countries.  I joined IMTM, Olomouc in 2018 as a Clinical Research Manager. I am responsible for clinical trials from the start-up phase to the study completion activities, including the data management. 

Viswanath Das is a Principal Investigator and Group Leader at the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine (IMTM), Palacky University of Olomouc. He earned his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biosciences from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and completed postdoctoral training at IMTM. With a focus on CNS disorders, Viswanath explores the mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders to develop targeted therapies. He has published extensively and presented research at national and international conferences. Committed to advancing knowledge, he collaborates with researchers within and outside the university. Viswanath is also dedicated to mentoring the next generation of researchers. Explore ongoing projects in his group under 'Laboratories and Research Groups' for more information.

Prof. Jiří Drábek, PhD. is the head of the LEM DNA laboratory and the representative for education at the IMTM. He is a forensic genetics expert, external auditor for ISO/IEC 17025, president of the Czechoslovak Society for Forensic Genetics, z.s., and editor of the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.

He received a Master's degree from Masaryk University in Brno, a PhD and habilitation from Palacký University in Olomouc, and a professorship at Charles University. He is professionally influenced by a PhD internship at Trinity College, Oxford, UK, a postdoctoral fellowship at Ohio University, Athens, USA, and a SEFE course organized by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Dr. Drabek's professional interests include reproducible prognostic/predictive cancer biomarkers and laboratory techniques for genotyping and forensic DNA profiling. He enjoys critical thinking and Bayesian interpretation of results.

I am working in the high throughput screening facility with focus on the testing of new chemical compounds, the implementation and validation of new biochemical and cell based assays into HTS. I am interested in identifying the active substances as potential drugs. I am experienced in liquid handling and robotic automation. Previously I was working in a field of mutagenesis and carcinogenesis at Cancer Reasearch Institute in Bratislava.

Scientist involved in molecular and translational medicine (disease area oncology and infectious diseases), Vice-Director of Healthcare with specialization in clinical genetics and leader of Virology and molecular carcinogenesis research group.

Specialties: Molecular and translational medicine, Oncology, Virology, Molecular carcinogenesis and HPV-driven cancers.

Responsibility for clinical diagnostics and healthcare staff management, next-genome sequencing, virus-driven infections, and carcinogenesis research. Teaching and examination of students, tutor for bachelor, master, and PhD. students.

Specializing in cellular stresses and their link to cancer development and treatment. Another specialization includes advanced microscopic techniques (the head of the bioimaging core facility: https://imtm.cz/core-facilities/bioimaging-core-facility ). Actively participated in the research of more than 10 national and international projects. Published more than >40 original investigations and three patents, >3000 citations, H-index 24

Head of the DNA replication dynamics research group at the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine.

Scientist with long-term specialization in the DNA replication and DNA damage response.

Author of 17 scientific publications, accumulating 1800 citations and H-index of 14.

Mentor for Bachelor, Master, and PhD students.

Positions for talented Master or PhD students keen on exploring DNA replication in normal and cancer cells are available. Feel free to contact me for detailed information.

My area of research was always within the grasp of the metabolomics field. After I studied biochemistry, I have been working at the University Hospital Olomouc and my PhD was focused on medical genetics – especially in the potential application of untargeted metabolomics tools in clinical practice as a diagnostic tool. During my first internship at the University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain) I have learnt how to work with cell cultures and various techniques in molecular biology. During my second internship in San Jose (CA, USA) at Thermo Fisher Scientific, I got advanced skills and training in Orbitrap-based mass spectrometers and software. I see the metabolomics great potential as a ‘universal’ diagnostic tool in personalised medicine. In my opinion, the first signs can already be seen e.g. as use of the iKnife or in the improvement in new-born screening across the world. As a part of a great team of the scientists of Phenome Centre Birmingham, I was able to participate in many projects which helped me to get deeper insights in cooperation between academia and commercial subjects (industry). Now I have returned to my alma mater to the Palacký University where I want to continue my research. In future, I would like to focus my efforts on the study of the oxidative stress on the metabolite level. I would like to transfer more of lipidomics research into clinical practice. In my opinion, lipidomics approach has a great diagnostic potential for clinicians and there are still many undiscovered research opportunities.

My main research interest are proteomics, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry and their practical applications in biomedical research. I'm applying those methods in the biomarker research in various body fluids, but also in the proteomic core facility or in the custom research for private companies.

Author of 15 scientific publications with H-index 9 and more than 500 citations. Tutor of more than 10 bachelory and diploma theses.

I graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Masaryk University, majoring in Biology and Ecotoxicology. As part of my doctoral studies, I focused on the creation of expert systems evaluating health or environmental data. I created software SVOD (Software for visualization of oncology data) evaluating the data of the national oncology registry NOR. Another major project was the Triton software used to assess the quality of small watercourses using multivariate statistical methods. After completing my PhD, I worked for several years as a C++ software developer and team leader at AVG Technologies, where I gained experience in cybersecurity, good programming practices, and agile development. At IMTM, I work as a Java application developer and am responsible for the IT team.

Researcher experienced in the field of Nuclear Medicine with the main research interest in the preclinical development of radiolabelled agents for molecular imaging. He is a holder of European specialisation certificate in radiopharmacy; National coordinator of Imaging and Tracing platform for European Translational Medicine Infrastructure (EATRIS); Member of the Accreditation Committee for the specialisation training in radiopharmaceuticals of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic; Member of the Board of the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine; Head of the Imaging and Tracing research group; actively participated in several national and international research projects. Published >50 scientific papers, >150 abstracts, >1400 SCI citations, H-index 21.

Publication list: http://publicationslist.org/milospetrik

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1334-5916

I'm a chemoinformatician mainly involved in medicinal chemistry projects of development of new drugs. Author of approaches and open-source software for:

• representation of chemical compounds, their mixtures, quasi-mixtures and chemical reactions for modeling purposes;
• interpretation of QSAR models to retrieve SAR knowledge and use for drug design;
• 3D pharmacophore hashes, ligand-based and MD-based pharmacophore modeling;
• de novo design and structure generation;
• multi-instance learning.

Author of 5 book chapters and more than 50 journal papers. 

Research interests: Medicinal and bioorganic chemistry, molecular and drug design, chemoinformatics, machine learning and data mining, programming.

The group page - https://imtm.cz/laboratories/chemoinformatics-and-drug-design?language_content_entity=en 

Web-site: http://qsar4u.com

Head of Animal Facility

I have more than ten years of work experience with laboratory animals: mice, rats, and piglets.

I am responsible for: 1. veterinary care, 2. teaching of animal models, 3. animal resource management, 4. technical study support, 5. experimental surgery, and 6. the development and refinement of animal models.

As a member of the Animal Care and Use Committee of Palacký University, I have to oversee the specific use of animals in the experiments.

The main aim of the animal team is to provide scientifically accurate, robust, and reproducible data from in vivo experiments. We used to follow up-to-date trends in laboratory animal husbandry, care, housing and welfare, and new approaches to the development and work with sophisticated and complex animal models. An experienced technical team performs procedures emphasizing refinement, welfare, and good animal practice.

I carry out the supervision of keeping high standards daily.

Václav Ranc received his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry in 2009 from the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, under the supervision of Prof. Karel Lemr. He was then employed at the Department of Analytical Chemistry, Palacky University, Olomouc, as an assistant professor from 2008 to 2010. In 2011, he joined the team of Prof. Rainer at the Department of Medicine at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland as a research scientist. He worked there from 2011-2012. He has worked as a researcher at Palacký University since 2012.

He has authored or co-authored 75 scientific publications. His H index is 29. He is a co-author of 3 international patents. His research is directed towards developing nano-sensors using Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and synthesis of functionalized nanomaterials. He is also an expert on stain-free microscopic techniques involving AFM, Raman confocal, and Infrared microscopy.

Zuzana Rožánková, PhD. is the head of the genetics and genomics core facility. She received a Master's degree and a PhD from Palacký University in Olomouc.

She focuses mainly on the detection of germline variants using next-generation sequencing technics (NGS). She participate on the project that is aimed at building a control database of genetic information typical for the Czech population.

Scientist and medical professional mainly involved in molecular and translational medicine (disease area paediatric, oncology and medical genetics). Experienced in project management and certification processes, involved as investigator in more than 20 national and international projects, co-founder of spin-off company focused on manufacturing of molecular diagnostics. 
Published more than >65 papers, >7books/chapters, >2 patents,  >290 oral/poster presentations, >1000 SCI citations, H-index 12

Specialties: 
Molecular and translational medicine
Pediatrics, Oncology and Medical Genetics
Circulating tumor cells detection
Molecular profilling of tumors
Prognostic, predictive and diagnostic biomarkers

Responsibility for transcriptomic sequencing, circulating tumor cells detection, PCR based methods, gene expression profiling, SNP and CNV arrays. Biostatistical analyses. Biomedical project coordinator. Quality manager (ISO 15189). Teaching and examination of students, tutor for Bc., MSc. and PhD. students.

I am a scientist in the field of medicinal chemistry with current focus on natural products with various biological activities. Since 2012 I am a leader of an independent research group that currently has 2 postdocs, 4 PhD and 8 undergraduate students. Our research consists of organic synthesis, evaluation of activities and mechanism of action. I have been a PI of several grant projects from Czech Science Agency and from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. Currently I serve on an evaluation panel of Czech Science Agency (P207). Earlier in my career, I was also involved in nucleic acid research, enzymology and biochemistry in general. In addition, I teach classes on bioorganic chemistry, chemical biology, and chemistry of nucleic acids. Published more than 40 papers, 3 book chapters, 4 patents, >1500 SCI citations, H-index 21.

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8249-028X 

Researcher ID: C-9611-2010 

After graduation (MSc., Numerical Mathematics) in 1997 I worked as I a system specialist in Přerov Machinery, Přerov, Czech Republic until 1998. Then I came back to my alma mater - Faculty of Sciences, Palacký University in Olomouc, the Department of Mathematical Analysis and Applications of Mathematics where I stayed until 2014. During this period, I earned my Ph.D. in Applied mathematics and concerned on teaching informatics subjects, statistical software and making statistical analyses in cooperation with other departments and faculties of Palacký University as well as external subjects. I had also opportunity to join some courses at Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry where I finally started work as a biostatistician in 2014. My main interest is to statistically solve biomedical problems from preparation phase through laboratory experiments up to clinical trials evaluation.