Members of the Placenta in Health and Disease research team (Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology) achieved a great success by winning 1st place in Angelini University Award 2020! The topic of this year was Mental Health.
The Angelini University Award is an initiative by Angelini Pharma for university students. The aim of the contest is to foster multidisciplinary projects that may have a practical applicability, through the promoting of innovation and youth entrepreneurship.
The Placenta team, consisting of three PhD students (Rona Karahoda, Hana Horáčková and Veronika Váchalová) and their supervisor (prof. František Štaud), entered the competition in January 2020 with a project titled "Importance of the placenta for fetal programming". From more than twenty competitors, they were selected and invited for the semifinals and finals, which took place at VIDA! Science Center in Brno on September 10.
The Angelini University Award is attractive not only for the financial prize for the winning team (CZK 100,000 for students and CZK 20,000 for their supervisor), but also for its format and organization. In two short presentations, the selected teams must convince not only the expert jury but also the audience in the lecture hall of the quality of their projects. We are proud that this year the team from the Faculty of Pharmacy was evaluated as the best of all competitors from all over the Czech Republic!
In their project, the Placenta team presented the importance of prenatal serotonin homeostasis during pregnancy and effect of antidepressants on fetal programming of mental diseases. The scientific excellence of this project is further documented by the fact, that several parts have recently been published in high quality international journals such as Acta Physiologica (IF = 5.868) and Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (IF = 5.201).
More info:
Text: doc. PharmDr. Jaroslav Roh, Ph.D., Vice-Dean for Scientific Activity, Doctoral Studies and Technology Transfer
Photo: Placenta in Health and Disease research team