Last year was good for IMG. We finished the organizational changes connected with establishing the independent sister Institute of Biotechnology AS CR, v. v. i., opened a new, beautiful conference hall and finished the park area next to our building.
But most of all, we were successful in what is our raison d'être – good science. In the interim evaluation of the institutes of the AS CR we were placed again into the highest “A” category, we published a number of papers in prestigious international journals, and in collaboration with our industrial partners developed a number of products of practical potential.
An indispensable part of the scientific life of the Institute were seminars and lectures given by Institute members and our numerous guests. Our new lecture hall (named recently “Milan Hašek Auditorium” in honour of Milan Hašek, the founder of our Institute) hosted an international conference celebrating the finishing of the complex of our new buildings, and later the 22nd Annual Mammalian Genome Conference.
A functional transgenic unit was established, as well as a new research group led by a young researcher with extensive international experience (R. Sedláček). We have again prepared a representative annual report for 2008.
In 2009, we will finish the reconstruction of the pavilion for non-mouse biological models (mainly chicken). We will build a kindergarten and a small gym.
It is gratifying that our research at IMG remains well financially supported by various grant agencies, including even very prestigious international grants. At present, we have at our Institute three co-investigators of grants of the 6th Framework EC Programme, one NIH grant and two EMBO grants. The Institute was awarded two “Research Centers” of the 1M Programme of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (Center of Applied Genomics, Center of Molecular and Cell Immunology) and our researchers participate in another 1M Center (Center of Targeted Therapeutics). We obtained support for three basic research Centers (Center of Cell Invasiveness in Embryonic Development and Tumour Metastases, Center of Functional Cell Organization, Center of Chemical Genetics), and the Institute researchers also contribute to the work of two other Centers of basic research (Center of Molecular Ecology of Vectors and Pathogens, Fluorescence Microscopy in Biological and Medical Research).
Professor Václav Pačes, the current President of AS CR and our dear colleague, was awarded the presidential Medal of Merit. Professor Jiří Forejt continues to be recipient of the highly prestigious AS CR award, Praemium Academiae, for five-year support; two Institute researchers (Dr. Radislav Sedláček and Dr. Petr Svoboda) are awardees of the five-year J.E. Purkynje Fellowship, and Dr. Tomáš Brdička is recipient of the three-year Otto Wichterle Award.
At present, 23 research groups of the Institute (with one or two more groups to be established during 2008) are engaged in the topics of molecular and cellular biology, molecular immunology, functional genomics and bioinformatics, study of oncogenes, molecular biology of development, structural biology and mechanisms of receptor signalling. Very positive for the Institute is the presence of many doctoral students and undergraduates. A high number of our scientists actively work as university teachers (e.g., five as professors and six as associate professors; we provide 27 semestral courses at the Universities).
Although we consider basic research as the priority area of the Institute activity, with publications in prestigious international journals as its main output, valuable applied research with particular practical applications is also being developed at our Institute. Even in this area the Institute has achieved significant success, with several well prospering spin-off companies as a result – these companies maintain close collaboration with our research groups.
The high standing of the Institute researchers is testified by a number of awards and prizes, including the membership of three Institute scientists in the Learned Society of the Czech Republic. The Institute represents the Czech Republic in several leading scientific organizations and institutions, including the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), the European Science Foundation (ESF), and the NATO Steering Group of the Science for Peace programme. Four Institute scientists have been elected EMBO members. Others serve on 18 Editorial Boards of scientific journals. In 2008, the Institute scientists were again authors or co-authors of publications in a number of prestigious international journals (Science, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Genome Research, Journal of Cell Biology, Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Immunology, Journal of Virology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA).
The scientists of the Institute of Molecular Genetics are very open to co-operation with the media in popularizing scientific results and explaining the importance of science in general and molecular genetics in particular (see e.g. IMG in media).
I am sure that a bright future is opening before the Institute of Molecular Genetics, as a continuation of the famous past represented by the names of Milan Hašek, Jan Svoboda, and a number of others.
I wish to thank all Institute employees for their work in the past year and hope that a lot of success awaits us in the oncoming year 2009.
