Dear colleagues, dear students,
Please allow me to greet you again and to inform you about current news at the faculty through the Dean’s Bulletin.
First and foremost, I would like to thank all the senators of the Academic Senate of our faculty for placing their trust in me and nominating me for the position of dean of the faculty for the second term. As in my first term, I will do my utmost to ensure that I do not disappoint their trust—or the trust of any other employees or students. I would also like to congratulate Prof. Jiří Zima on being elected the candidate for the position of Rector of Charles University, and I look forward to future cooperation.
The first month of the new academic year is already behind us, and I believe our new colleagues—the first-year students of the Master’s degree program in Pharmacy and of both our Bachelor’s degree programs—have managed to adapt and gradually become accustomed to the new style of study as well as to university life in general. As I have mentioned several times—at the introductory course, at matriculation ceremonies, or at the first lectures—nothing would make me happier than seeing all of you successfully graduate in three or, respectively, five years’ time. Everything is in your hands, so please keep up with your preparation for credits and exams throughout the semester and use seminars to discuss and clarify any uncertainties. The exam period will come very quickly, and it may be too late then to make up for lost time.
I would also like to welcome the students of our follow-up Master’s programs and our new doctoral students. I wish you much success in your studies, and for our doctoral students in particular, many interesting discoveries in your scientific work.
I am pleased that the past months have once again demonstrated the excellent quality of our doctoral programs. This year as well, one of our doctoral graduates has received the Dimitris Chorafas Prize, awarded in cooperation with the Weizmann Institute of Science to the best graduating doctoral student of Charles University in a given year. My sincere congratulations go to Michael J. Bakker, Ph.D. (supervisor: Dr Jana Pavlíková Přecechtělová from Assoc. Prof. Jurjen Tebbens’s group) on this outstanding achievement. I would also like to congratulate Samira Eissazadeh, Ph.D., from Prof. Petr Nachtigal’s group, who—for exceptional results achieved during her doctoral studies—received the 2025 Prize of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, and to Martin Juhaščík, Ph.D., who received a Special Jury Mention in the Sanofi Award for Pharmacy 2025.
Our undergraduate students have not been left behind this time either. I am very pleased that Ekaterina Frantsuzova, a student of the Master’s program in Pharmacy, received the Via Chimica Prize—awarded by the Experientia Foundation and the Learned Society of the Czech Republic to support young chemical talents at universities—for her scientific work in Prof. Milan Pour’s group. I congratulate Ekaterina and wish her much success in her further studies.
In the area of grants and project activities, I would like to thank and congratulate Assoc. Prof. Martin Krátký and Dr. Martin Juhás on obtaining projects from the Czech Health Research Council (AZV). In total, two faculty projects out of nine submitted were supported (a 22% success rate), which roughly corresponds to the overall success rate of the competition, where 20% of applications were funded.
My congratulations also go to the members of the multidisciplinary team from our faculty and the Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové for the discovery of topobexin, the first selective inhibitor of topoisomerase II beta, published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications. This is already the second publication with a strong contribution from our faculty in this journal in 2025, and I trust that similar high-quality results will continue to follow.
At the end of September, our faculty once again took part in the popular science event Researchers’ Night. On Friday, September 26, in the afternoon, an amazing 1,500 visitors made their way to the faculty, where twelve places offered fun tasks, experiments, and a wealth of interesting information. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the entire organizing team and to everyone involved—it was truly a wonderful event and excellent promotion of our faculty and of pharmacy as a whole.
I would also like to briefly mention the upcoming completion of the construction of our new campus. Public procurement procedures for individual components of the interior equipment are currently underway, and all work is moving toward the planned approval in June 2026. Preparations for the move are also beginning, and therefore I would like to remind all employees that the first information meeting on this topic will take place on Tuesday, November 18 at 15:00 in Lecture Hall A. In the background, intensive negotiations regarding the financing of our campus and of the Albertov Campus continue. The latter has fallen significantly behind schedule and will no longer be able to meet the indicators set by the call of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Its future will also affect the financing of our campus, since both buildings—the Biocentre Albertov and Mephared 2—constitute one large investment.
In closing, I would like to invite all students and employees to the traditional Joint Concert of the students of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, which will take place on Tuesday, November 25 at Petrof Gallery, with proceeds once again going to a good cause.
I am also looking forward to seeing you at our faculty’s Christmas Concert, which will take place on December 9 at 19:00 in the Municipal Music Hall.
Assoc. Prof. PharmDr. Jaroslav Roh, Ph.D.
Dean of the faculty