Press releases

More than three and a half million crowns for a year and a half of high-quality research on their own terms – this is the amount that 55 scientists will receive from the European Union budget. The winners of the newly announced ERC Proof of Concept grants were announced on the 24th of May by the European Research Council (ERC). Two of the grants will also go to the Czech Republic, both of them to the workplaces of the Czech Academy of Sciences, being awarded to Milan Vrábel and Tomáš Čižmár.

Scientists at the Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS have the first-ever laboratory of accelerator mass spectrometry in the Czech Republic. In the presence of the President of the CAS Eva Zažímalová and the Minister of Science, Research and Innovation Helena Langšádlová, the laboratory was inaugurated today on the premises in Řež. The Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) method is used, for example, to determine the age of archaeological objects, to monitor the climate development or to observe nuclear weapons non-proliferation safeguards.

Bird species whose males perform aerial displaying inhabit open rather than closed (forest) environments and are more likely to have multiple mates. They usually have more elongated wings, which is related to the fact that they migrate longer distances, and breed at higher latitudes, i.e. further from the equator. In addition, the aerial displaying seems to be relatively common in generally small passerine species with brightly coloured plumage. All of this suggests that the evolution of aerial displays in passerine is the result of both sexual and natural selection, as scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Faculty of Science of Charles University have found in a recent comprehensive analysis. The results of the research have been published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal.

They are always there, dwelling in the water, where they play a key role in food webs, in cycling of nutrients, matter and energy, and water purification. However, as happens with organisms that tend to be inconspicuous and often invisible to the naked eye, society mostly neglects them, and forgets their huge importance in providing support and stability of aquatic ecosystems. What is even more problematic, we also forget that they are exposed to a wide range of threats from human activities. Without proper conservation measures, their populations can decline and go extinct just like all of the other, more conspicuous aquatic organisms, with unforeseen consequences for marine and freshwater ecosystems. This was the object of a study by an international team led by researchers from the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, as well as from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Germany, and the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

The first and unique installation of high-energy gamma-ray imaging Cherenkov telescopes in the Czech Republic has been successfully completed at the observatory in Ondřejov. Both telescopes have thus become the largest optical telescopes in the country and their quality is comparable to the instruments that will operate at the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the most sensitive international high-energy gamma-ray observatory in the world.

In this work, we have explored communities of fungi colonizing the gastrointestinal tract of primates, also known as the primate mycobiome. This poorly understood fraction of the mammalian gut microbiome has received increasing attention nowadays, as they play a crucial role in regulating the host immune responses. Therefore, it is much needed to understand the factors that determine the colonization of fungal communities.

Commonly used radiation therapy kills cancer cells by inflicting extensive DNA damage to the irradiated tissue. An international team including several researchers at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague (IMG), now shed light into an unexpected strategy of cancer cells to evade death by radiation in a study published in Science, one of the most prestigious scientific journals.

Unique structures, called guanine quadruplexes (G4), have been discovered by a team of Czech scientists in the genetic information of a tick-borne encephalitis virus. The experts found out that these structures play an important role in the virus' replication and can be targeted in the search for new antivirals. In testing potential chemicals that recognize these G4 structures, they found promising molecules with a high antiviral effect. In the future, these substances may thus expand the repertoire of potential drugs for this infection.

VDI monitor, or, a simple and non-invasive way to implant a pacemaker as efficiently as possible. This particular technology, developed by scientists from the Institute of Scientific Instruments of the CAS in Brno in collaboration with partners, won the Technology and Innovation Showcase in early April, which was a part of the European Heart Rhythm Association 2022 international conference in Copenhagen.

An international team of scientists led by Hana Hanzlíková from the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Keith Caldecott from the University of Sussex in the UK has discovered which sites in the DNA molecule inside cancer cells are the basis of the effect of anticancer drugs (called PARP inhibitors). The results, published recently in the prestigious Nature Structural and Molecular Biology journal, will be used to understand the mechanism of the effect of PARP inhibitors that lead to the death of certain types of cancer cells and open the path to new ways of treating tumors.