News archive

In the tenth jubilee year of the in-house photo contest of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the winner became the photo by Dušan Tichoň from the Institute of Physics of Materials of the CAS entitled “The Life Form of Iron”. All the photographs which were awarded are on view in large format as part of the exhibition at the Science and Art Gallery at the CAS headquarters on Národní Street in Prague until 31 January 2024. Admission is free.

With a bit of imagination, we can picture the Gemin3 protein as a sort of molecular hairdresser. The protein, discovered almost 25 years ago, was known to be essential, as no organism can survive without it. However, it was not entirely clear what it was actually for – until now. Research teams from the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the CAS and the Institute of Microbiology of the CAS have succeeded in showing that the protein plays an important role in a process called RNA splicing. The research results were published in Nature Communications.

From the outer ear to the auditory nerve. A new complete computer model of the ear, developed by researchers at the IOCB of the CAS, will allow the non-invasive study of hearing in mammals, including humans, on an unprecedented scale. It should help not only better our understanding of the human ear, but also improve hearing aids. The research results have been published in Hearing Research.

On 9 November 2023, three internationally renowned researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences received the Academic Award – Praemium Academiae from the President of the CAS, Eva Zažímalová. The financial reward of up to CZK 30 million will help them advance research which holds current social relevance. The awards in 2023 were bestowed to social geographer Petr Jehlička, theoretical chemist Martin Srnec, and physicist Martin Friák.

The third annual Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences took place from 6–12 November 2023, opening the doors of research institutions in 22 locations across the Czech Republic. Visitors had the chance to take a peek inside cutting-edge laboratories and ask researchers about what their day-to-day work looks like. The programme always includes open houses, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and public debates, and the participation of most of the institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Twenty-four events were held in English. As every year, admission to all events is free, but in certain cases, reservations are required.

About eighty minutes. That’s how long it takes for barley cells to divide. Plant geneticists from the Institute of Experimental Botany of the CAS have brought this previously unknown information to light. And in real time, too. The discovery, which will facilitate the breeding of cereal grain varieties, was published in The Plant Journal.

In cooperation with specialists from MIT, the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the CAS is developing unique software that will enable researchers to search through and contextualise a tremendous number of digitised historical sources and evaluate them using artificial intelligence. The Novel Digital History Project web app should be made available online to the public within the next year. The researchers’ goal is to integrate the new software with archives, libraries, and other institutions around the world.

Registration for the 18th edition of the prestigious L'ORÉAL-UNESCO For Women in Science programme is now open. Women researchers who are under forty years old and have a PhD in physical sciences, formal sciences, engineering sciences and technology, life sciences or chemical sciences can register their research project by 31 December 2023 here.

If Europe still wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, it must look for alternatives to fossil fuels. However, the transition to renewable resources is not yet set in stone. The regional conference of the SUNERGY initiative, Transition Pathways Toward Sustainable Fossil-Free Fuels and Base Chemicals, outlined what options lie ahead.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. It can affect about one tenth of the population. Researchers have now succeeded in describing the significance of hundreds of inherited mutations in the CHEK2 gene that cause this cancer. The results of an extensive interdisciplinary collaboration led by Libor Macourek from the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the CAS and Zdeněk Kleibel from the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University have been published in the Clinical Cancer Research journal.