On Wednesday, December 11, 2019, at Prague Castle, the President of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, appointed Professor Pavel Matějka Rector of the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague.

Professor Matějka will become leader of the university on January 1, 2020, with a four-year term of office.

Joining Professor Matějka at the event were Radek Cibulka, Chair of the UCT Prague Academic Senate, and outgoing Rector, Karel Melzoch.

Prof. Dr. RNDr. Pavel MATĚJKA studied physical chemistry at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, joining UCT Prague in 1993. In 2003, he became associate professor and since 2008 he has been a full UCT Prague professor. From 2010 to 2013, he was Vice-Dean for External Relations at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering. Since 2013, he has been Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry. In 2016, he became UCT Prague‘s Vice-Rector for External Relations and Communication. He is interested in the development of vibrational spectroscopy techniques using nanoparticles and nanostructures, resulting in approximately 150 publications in high-quality journals, more than 2,100 citations (without self-citations), and h-index 23.

The University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT Prague) is a natural hub for top-class education and research in the field of chemistry in the Czech Republic. It is one of the largest Czech educational and research institutions focused on technical chemistry, chemical and biochemical technologies, material and chemical engineering, food sciences and the environment. There are over 4,000 students studying at the university, with an extraordinary proportion of doctoral students (on average, 700). Some of the educational programmes are unique and crucial for the future of the entire Czech Republic. UCT Prague cooperates with more than 100 academic institutions mainly in Europe, but also in the USA, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, and beyond.

Photography: fotoarchiv KPR, Hana Brožková

Dear colleagues, academia members of FCE,

we would like to announce the two candidates for the dean elections of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, UCT Prague:

• Dr. RNDr. Pavel Matějka
• Ing. Michal Přibyl, Ph.D.

The Academic senate of FCE has already asked the candidates a set of questions. The answers of both professors together with their short resumes are available HERE

On Friday the 14^th of December 2018 at 1 PM in the AII lecture hall there will be a public presentation of both candidates in Czech language. The candidates will present their visions and will answer further questions of the academia members.

Questions can be asked either directly during the presentation or in advance through a form here https://goo.gl/forms/51eFrArm6i8g1Ji82

The election will take place on the 17^th of December and the new dean’s mandate will start on the 1^st of February 2019.

Kind regards,
the election committee

Dr. Ing. Pavel Vrbka (chair); vrbkap@vscht.cz

Ing. Martin Člupek, Ph.D.; clupekm@vscht.cz

Ing. Marek Šoltys; soltysa@vscht.cz

Editor's Choice: Paul Cremer

Associate Editor Paul Cremer highlights the article of Jan Heyda et al. “Guanidinium can both Cause and Prevent the Hydrophobic Collapse of Biomacromolecules“, an open access article published under an ACS AuthorChoice License:

“Guanidinium salts are widely used as protein denaturants. In this work, we showed that their influence on biomacromolecules depended strongly upon the identity of the specific anion with which the guanidinium cation was paired. This led to very rich chemistry.

For example, low concentrations of GndSCN helped to stabilize the collapsed state of the macromolecule despite the fact that higher concentrations of the same salt served as a powerful denaturant. Moreover, Gnd2SO4 worked as a stabilizer of protein structure, but for very different mechanistic reasons than low concentrations of GndSCN.

This work highlights the strong interplay of thermodynamics, spectroscopy, and theory that is currently employed to unravel challenging mechanistic problems in modern biophysical chemistry.”

See more here

The development department of ZENTIVA is proud to announce that Tereza Boleslavská, as the first Zentiva student, has just started two-month training at the Trinity College in Dublin within the frame of ORBIS (Open Research Biopharmaceutical Internships Support) program sponsored by 2.3 mio EUR grant from European Commission (HORIZON 2020). The aim of ORBIS is to create a bridge between academic and industrial scientists in order to develop new efficient methodologies in pharmaceutical RD.  Zentiva will keep sending its best students and employees to study in the best European academic institutions. At the same time our academic partners will spend period of research work in Zentiva laboratories having the opportunity not only interact with our scientific staff but to gain experience from the pharmaceutical business and manufacturing as well.

ATHENS interdisciplinary course on “DIGITAL SIGNAL AND IMAGE PROCESSING WITH APPLICATIONS”  organized by Department of Computing and Control Engineering, UCT Prague, took place on November 14-18, 2016. All its participants from 7 countries successfully presented their research topics during the final colloquium.

2nd place - Ondřej Rychecký: Cultivation of spheroids in liquid marbles (supervisor Jitka Čejková), Department of Chemical Engineering

3rd place - Petr Číhal: Sorption and diffusion of organic compounds in CTA-based polymeric blends (supervisor Ondřej Vopička), Department of Physical Chemistry

Laboratory of Inorganic Materials, a joint workplace of the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague and the IRSM ASCR, v.v.i., was awarded a two-year contract to work with US national Laboratories on the development of the mathematical model of glass melting during the vitrification of nuclear waste.

The team at UCT Prague is headed by Richard Pokorny, a PhD student at the Department of Chemical Engineering, who already cooperated with US laboratories for several years. “Together with associated professor Jaroslav Klouzek, we will build on my previous work, and will focus on the development of the model for batch to glass conversion in nuclear waste melter. Using this model, we will be able to predict the melting rate, and help to optimize the whole conversion process”, Mr. Pokorny says.

About the Vitrification project:

In southeastern Washington state, Bechtel National, Inc. is designing, constructing, and commissioning the world’s largest radioactive waste treatment plant for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). When complete, the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, will process and stabilize million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste currently stored at the Hanford Site.

For more information, visit http://www.hanfordvitplant.com/about-project.

Professor Petr Slavíček from the Department of Physical Chemistry was awarded the Neuron prize for a young researcher. Congratulations!!

The Neuron Award for Promising Young Scientists is designated to acknowledge Czech scientists under the age of 40, who have achieved excellent scientific results, and to recognise their activities and promote their future progress.

Each year,  the best scientists in the fields: physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine and social sciences are awarded.

Student Jakub Kubečka from the group of Prof. Slavíček received the Audience Award. Congratulations! Further finalist from our faculty was To Quyen Nguyenová from the Department of Chemical Engineering. Václav Bystrianský from the Faculty of Environmental Technology won the Academy of Sciences Award. Congratulations! Eliška Selinger from Charles University will represent the Czech Republic in the final international competition. 

FameLab is an international science communication competition that currently runs in 23 countries all around the world. Contestants have three minutes to present a scientific subject of their choosing. They are not allowed to use a projector. The only props allowed are ones that they can carry onto and from the stage themselves.

Ph.D. student David Tomeček from the Department of Physics and Measurements
got E-MRS award for graduate students conducting research. Congratulations!

The Czech Constitutional Court recently referred to Prof. RNDr. Štěpán Urban's research into human smell recognition. 

• Read more about the case (in Czech)
• Read more about Prof. Urban's research

Our student Vít Svoboda and his supervisor Ondřej Votava from the Department of Physical Chemistry received Werner von Siemens awards for their work "High resolution overtone spectroscopy of atmospherically relevant molecules". Congratulations!

Werner von Siemens awards are sponsored by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. 2016 marks the eighteenth time the awards have been granted.

Traditional Students' Scientific Conference took place on Friday November 20, 2015. 141 of works in 18 competitive sections were presented by students of bachelor's and master's degree. The level of the lectures was high and the members of the commissions did not have an easy task to choose just the top three. Winners took diplomas from the hands of our dean prof. Urbanová. We congratulate to all of the winners! All organizers and participants are acknowledged! And of course we would like to thank our sponsors for their generous donations!

Professor Miloš Marek from the Department of Chemical Engineering received the award for the outstanding outcomes of his research. He and his group focus namely on heterogeneous catalysts for exhaust gas conversion.