The Jaroslav Heyrovský Foundation Prize in the Molecular Biology category for 2023 was awarded to high school student Tereza Šustrová and her supervisor Martin Marek from the Loschmidt Laboratories at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, where the young researcher developed a project as part of the Secondary School Professional Activity.
The Jaroslav Heyrovský Foundation Prize in the Molecular Biology category for 2023 was awarded to high school student Tereza Šustrová and her supervisor Martin Marek from the Loschmidt Laboratories at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, where the young researcher developed a project as part of the Secondary School Professional Activity.
Tereza Šustrová is a student in her final year at the Brno High School, Captain Jaroš street. During his high school studies, she devoted her free time to an internship in the Loschmidt Laboratories team and elaborated the results of her research as a paper for the Secondary School Vocational Activities competition. With the project entitled "Reprogramming of luciferin-substrate specificity in NanoLuc luciferase", she took first place in the field of Molecular Biology this year. With the same project, she also won the Česká Hlavičky award in the GENUS-Nature around us category. Currently, she is preparing for foreign competitions and taking care of her strange Flycatcher. Educator Martin Marek works at the Department of Experimental Biology, SCI MUNI and at the International Clinical Research Center of the Faculty Hospital at St. Anna in Brno and MED MUNI, and he has been repeatedly awarded as a trainer.
At the annual ceremony of the Jaroslav Heyrovský Foundation Awards, traditionally held at the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague, successful students from all over the Czech Republic were awarded. This year, the awards were presented to 17 winners and selected laureates of Czech student subject Olympiads (11) and creative competitions, i.e. 6 awards for works of the Secondary School Vocational Activity (SOČ), announced by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.
By supporting Czech talented students, the Jaroslav Heyrovský Foundation strives to fulfil the scientific and human legacy of Professor Jaroslav Heyrovský, the first Czechoslovak Nobel Prize winner.
Honorary doctorates were awarded, by decision of the Scientific Council of Masaryk University, to Professor Thomas Robert Cech, who made a significant contribution to the formation of the field of biological sciences; and Professor Peter Wolfram Michor, who made a significant contribution to the development of mathematics.
A team of botanists has revealed significant changes in the distribution of species in the Czech flora. Their study, published in the international scientific journal Biological Conservation, analyzed the decline and increase of individual plant species in the Czech Republic since 1960.
