At the beginning of the year, three prominent figures will take up leadership roles at departments of the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University. Jana Klánová has been reappointed Director of the RECETOX Centre, while Michaela Wimmerová will continue as Director of the National Centre for Biomolecular Research. Jaromír Leichmann, who is stepping down from his role as Vice-Dean for Development and Quality, will become Director of the Department of Geological Sciences, a role he previously held from 2007 to 2010.
prof. RNDr. Jana Klánová, Ph.D.
Jana Klánová is Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University. She has also received an honorary doctorate from Örebro University in Sweden. Her research focuses on environmental and health risks linked to the presence of toxic substances in natural, occupational, and residential environments, as well as in water, food, and consumer products. More broadly, she studies how natural and social environments, together with human behaviour and choices, affect population health and the development of chronic diseases.
She has been Director of the RECETOX Centre since 2013 and, since 2020, has coordinated the prestigious European project CETOCOEN Excellence. Its aim is to transform the RECETOX Centre, through long-term partnerships with leading European universities, into a European Centre of Excellence for research on the human exposome and the impacts of environmental exposures. She also leads the European research infrastructure EIRENE, contributes to the establishment of the Global Exposome Forum, and is involved in the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals.
Over the past period, many new opportunities have opened up for us. Now we need to step through those open doors and make the most of the potential offered by new research directions and partnerships.
According to Jana Klánová, the main priority for the RECETOX Centre over the next two years is the successful completion of the Teaming project.
“It is essential to ensure that the European Centre of Excellence is sustainable in the long term and continues to develop all areas of its activities even after the eight-year grant ends. We need to invest in modernising education, including an English-language programme that we are developing with the University of Rennes and other partners within the EDUC network, supported by the ERASMUS MUNDUS project. At the same time, we must focus on recruiting high-quality students, upgrading infrastructural capacities, training a new generation of RECETOX leaders, and ensuring effective management,” Klánová said.
Within the next three years, she sees the completion of the implementation of the European research infrastructure EIRENE as a key task. This includes the establishment of a legal entity governed by the Czech Republic, a central system for managing access to infrastructural capacities, as well as reference laboratories and data centres.
“We are also entering the final three years of the European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals, with selected activities to be taken over by EIRENE. A few months ago, we launched the Open Science II project, where we are responsible for building several national repositories for environmental data. We are preparing for the reconstruction of the second half of the INBIT pavilion. And during the autumn, we submitted a number of European project proposals—we will find out how successful we were in the coming weeks,” she added.
From the very beginning, RECETOX has been built as an interdisciplinary centre bringing together chemical, biochemical, biological, mathematical, and statistical expertise needed to address real-world problems.
“What started as an environmentally focused centre has gradually expanded to include research on the links between the environment and human health. Projects such as Teaming or ERA Chair have strengthened our capacities in epidemiology and biomedicine,” Klánová explained.
“A distinctive feature of the centre is its strong connection to major research infrastructures and to application-oriented centres that support the transfer of knowledge into practice and capacity building in developing countries. The Brno Living Laboratory, which promotes regional cooperation between research institutions, hospitals, schools, industrial companies, public administration, and citizens, and which is a flagship project of the Brno 2050 strategy, received a European certificate and became a member of the European Network of Living Labs last year. All of this opens up a wide range of new opportunities that can now be fully utilised,” she added.
According to Klánová, it is important to stabilise research teams, strengthen their links to European research, make full use of unique infrastructural capacities such as long-term population studies, accredited laboratories, and data and application centres, and reinforce the centre’s role in European partnerships and global networks.
“These new research capacities must also be reflected in modernised study programmes and in regional partnerships—this is where I see great potential in the Living Laboratory,” she concluded.
prof. RNDr. Jaromír Leichmann, Dr. rer. nat.
Jaromír Leichmann has been Professor of Geology at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, since 2019 and will now take up the position of Director of the Department of Geological Sciences, which he previously led between 2007 and 2010. In 2010, he was elected Dean of the Faculty and served two consecutive terms until 2018. Between 2003 and 2005, he also chaired the Academic Senate of the Faculty of Science.
His research focuses primarily on magmatic and metamorphic processes, petrology, and the geochemistry of rocks. He has taken part in numerous national and international projects funded by, among others, the Czech Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education, and the Interreg and Norway Grants programmes. He is the author of dozens of scientific publications, and his work has long been cited within the international scientific community.
Adequate replacements for retiring staff will be essential
Looking ahead, Leichmann considers personnel renewal to be the main priority for the Institute of Geological Sciences.
“There are currently five staff members at the institute—professors and associate professors—who are of retirement age. Over the next two years, it will therefore be necessary to find adequate replacements for those on whom teaching, accreditation, and research have so far depended,” he said.
Alongside maintaining publication output in traditional geoscience disciplines such as palaeontology or mineralogy, Leichmann emphasises the need to reflect key trends in contemporary applied geology.
“This includes research on critical raw materials for the European Union, the protection and use of groundwater, and other issues related to climate change, as well as the underground storage of resources, particularly hydrogen, and waste such as spent nuclear fuel,” he added.
prof. RNDr. Michaela Wimmerová, Ph.D.
Michaela Wimmerová first became Director of the National Centre for Biomolecular Research in 2022. Her research focuses mainly on structure–function studies of proteins, their involvement in the formation of unusual carbohydrate structures, and their specific recognition. Twenty-five years ago, she also established the Glycobiochemistry research group at the centre.
She has been Professor of Biochemistry since 2013 and is also the guarantor of the doctoral programme Life Sciences. She has long been active in the scientific community and has served or continues to serve in national and international organisations, including the International Glycoconjugate Organisation, the Czech Science Foundation, the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, and the Czech Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
We want to help shape the image of our faculty as a modern centre of excellence
“During my time as Director, the centre has made significant progress in developing a clear identity and profile in the fields of structural biology, bioinformatics, and plant biology. In the future, it will be essential to focus on excellent research closely linked to high-quality teaching and strong communication, so that we can attract talented and motivated students and researchers. At the same time, we want to strengthen links between the centre and other institutes of the Faculty of Science and CEITEC Masaryk University,” Wimmerová said.
According to her, the current composition of research topics at the centre provides a solid basis for addressing important experimental questions not only at the molecular level, but also in the context of entire cells and organisms.
“In the coming years, research in structural biology is likely to move towards more complex questions, whether related to information processing and DNA repair, RNA processing and degradation, interactions between proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules, recognition processes, or the relationship between the structure and function of biomolecules,” she explained.
The centre also places strong emphasis on plant biology, focusing on the study of molecular complexes using genomic and proteomic approaches.
“One of the key pillars of our expertise is computational methods and bioinformatics, ranging from the development of classical molecular mechanics approaches and computationally demanding quantum calculations to their application and the development of new software tools,” she said.
Over the past three years, the centre has established a clearly defined standard of teaching quality, which will remain a major focus in the future.
“One of the key areas of development is bioinformatics. Based on cooperation with Associate Professor David Šafránek from the Faculty of Informatics, we have newly accredited a follow-up Master’s programme in Bioinformatics and also contribute to teaching in the Bachelor’s programme. Interest in the programme has exceeded expectations, and a pilot cohort is currently under way. Based on this experience, we will further refine both the content and the format of the programmes. At the doctoral level, we supported the accreditation of a shared programme with the Institute of Experimental Biology, and across the faculty we contribute to the development of study standards through the introduction of proven monitoring tools, such as Thesis Advisory Committees,” Wimmerová said.
When it comes to promoting the centre, she sees the use of a wide range of communication channels as essential in order to engage prospective students, the scientific community, and the general public in a long-term and appealing way.
“In this way, we want to raise awareness of activities at the centre and contribute to the overall image of our faculty as a modern, top-level institution,” she concluded.
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