Preface
Currently the Institute of Experimental Medicine consists of 10 departments and 2 independent laboratories. There are about 217 employees, including 88 university graduates and 44 foreign students or visitors, working in the Institute. The publication activity of the Institute is growing every year, and most of its publications appear in journals with high impact factors including Physiological Reviews, Nature, Cell, Trends in Neuroscience, Trends in Pharmacology, The Journal of Cell Biology, NeuroImage, Journal of Physiology, Journal of Cell Science, Molecular Pharmacology, Biophysical Journal, Carcinogenesis, Glia, Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Journal of Dental Research, Hippocampus, Leukemia and Journal of Leukocyte Biology.
The current research areas in the Institute of Experimental Medicine are a result of its history. It was officially founded in 1975 by combining four medical research laboratories that had been organized twenty years before. Three of the laboratories had been affiliated with clinical departments of Charles University, i. e., the Department of Plastic Surgery, the Department of Ophthalmology, and the Department of Otorhinolaryngology. The fourth laboratory was closely connected with the Department of Histology of the First Medical Faculty and was oriented toward cell and tissue ultrastructure. Under the leadership of the renowned professors Burian, Kurz, Přecechtěl and Wolf, the laboratories established themselves in the world of medicine and contributed significantly to the international recognition of Czechoslovak medical research. The four laboratories, although intellectually strong and reasonably well-equipped, suffered from physical isolation and lack of collaboration. Therefore, it was considered proper to join the laboratories and to establish an Institute under the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. An otolaryngologist, Professor Vlastimil Kusak, was appointed as the first director (1975–1984). The research spectrum was extended by inviting to the Institute a group of immunologists (Dr. Jiři Franěk, Dr. Karel Nouza), and by establishing a laboratory to investigate the health effects of mycotoxins in Eastern Bohemia (Olešnice, Eagle Mountains)
In the seventies and eighties the profile of the Institute crystallized, particularly in the period when most of the laboratories were transferred to a building on Legerova street and subsequently when Professor Jiři Elis was appointed director (1984–1990). Research areas broadened to include the electron microscopic investigation of the cell nucleus and nucleolus, particularly in blood cells; the morphological tracing of nucleic acids; the morphology and immunocytochemistry of the thyroid gland and pancreas; mechanisms of local immunity, cancer immunity and graft-versus-host reaction; biochemistry and histochemistry of the eye; corneal pathology and the testing of contact lenses; the morphology of the inner ear and its changes under the influence of noise; the electrophysiology of the central auditory system; the basics of genotoxicity and teratology; the mechanisms and epidemiology of craniofacial malformations; and the testing of mycotoxins. While several groups and individuals succeeded in reaching a high standard of scientific work, the Institute as a whole suffered from scattered topics, a lack of internal communication and many other obstacles characteristic of life in the seventies and eighties.
In the beginning of the nineties, several parallel processes led to the harmonizing of the scientific orientation of the Institute as well as of its human capital. These processes comprised not only the change in the political situation in the country but also a significant rejuvenation of the Institute. In 1990, Professor Jelinek, Head of the Laboratory of Teratology, was appointed director of the Institute (1990–1994). The structure of the Institute was reorganized on the basis of a free competition of internal projects and further strengthened by its success rate in the competition for grants from the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences. The involvement of members of the Institute in both the teaching of medical students and in ecologically oriented research increased, particularly concerning the adverse effects of exogenous factors on the organism.
