Dear colleagues, dear students,
This time, I will start the Dean's Bulletin with information about the great success of our entire faculty and staff. The project entitled New Technologies for Translational Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences (NETPHARM), which we prepared last year and submitted at the beginning of this year to the call "Top Research" of the Operational Programme Jan Amos Komenský, has been accepted for funding. In the next four years, our faculty will coordinate drugs research and development with a total value of nearly half a billion CZK! In addition to virtually all departments of our faculty, the project involves selected departments of the Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové, two institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences—the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and the CEITEC Institute of Masaryk University. I would like to again thank all those who participated in the preparation of this project. I believe that the project will bring many new findings in basic research as well as applied results useful in medical and pharmaceutical practice.
Another great achievement was attributed to Prof. František Švec from the Department of Analytical Chemistry, who received the Neuron 2023 Award in Chemistry. I would like to congratulate and thank him not only for his invaluable contribution to world science, especially in the field of analytical chemistry, but also for the great promotion of our faculty.
In connection with the promotion of the faculty, I would like to thank all the staff and students who participated in the preparation and organization of the Night of Scientists and the Open Day at our faculty. Together, over a thousand visitors came to both events and the feedback was very positive. Both events thus clearly contributed not only to the promotion of our faculty, but also to the general awareness of what pharmacy is all about and what it is able to offer to our society.
In the last bulletin, I welcomed our new undergraduate students to our faculty, and now I would like to do the same towards our new PhD students. I am very glad that you have chosen our faculty for this prestigious and challenging study. I am also very pleased that most of you prepared and submitted a project proposal to the Charles University Grant Agency during October. Together with the proposals of students from the higher years, we submitted a total of 33 projects this year. Many thanks to all the proposers and fingers crossed that as many projects as possible will be accepted for funding!
In connection with scientific activities, it is worth mentioning a rather significant change in the evaluation system and the related funding of research at Charles University, to which we will have to respond in the evaluation and funding of scientific activities at the faculty. Therefore, I would like to invite all academic and scientific staff and, if they are interested, PhD students to a round table on 29 November at 14:00 in lecture hall C, where we will present and discuss the new university system and the changes in the faculty system linked to it.
As usual, I will also mention the construction of our new campus, which is already in full swing, a fact that is entirely evident in the brisk traffic on the construction site and, unfortunately, in the slight shaking of the existing first campus building caused by the activity of the drilling rigs. Although, to my disappointment, these did not encounter oil, the builders did make one interesting discovery, namely two large fossilised trunks weighing a total of 25 tonnes. After a cursory inspection, it seemed that they would not be of any archaeological interest and plans were already being made to place them in our Medicinal Plant Garden. "Unfortunately", it turned out that the trunks bore traces of human processing and that they could be semi-finished products of so-called monoxyles. The trunks have therefore ended up in the depository of the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Jaroměř.
Finally, let me invite all the staff and students of the faculty to two cultural events. The first one is the Charity Concert of the students of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, which will take place on Tuesday, 28 November at 19:00 in the Petrof Gallery. Proceeds will be donated to the rehabilitation of a two-year-old boy who suffers from a congenital spinal cord defect and thoracic vertebral deformity. The second one is the traditional Christmas concert of Faculty of Pharmacy, which this year will take place on 14 December at 19:00 in the Municipal Music Hall. We can look forward to the chanson group 6NaChodníku.
I look forward to seeing you at the above events.
doc. PharmDr. Jaroslav Roh, Ph.D.
Dean of the faculty