President Petr Pavel presented the award to Šárka Pospíšilová at the Prague Castle this Tuesday, during the national holiday on 28 October, which marks the Czechoslovak Independence Day. In total, 48 individuals were honoured, including several who received the award in memoriam. The Medal of Merit is given to those who have made an outstanding contribution to the country or to local government in areas such as the economy, science and research, technology, culture, the arts, sports, education, the environment, and national security and also in recognition of social, charitable, volunteer and healthcare activities.
To mark this extraordinary recognition, we bring you an interview with Šárka Pospíšilová about her research, her career and her work at Masaryk University.
Where do you see your greatest contribution? Is it in the research itself, in the diagnostics of blood cancers, or perhaps in supporting and popularising science?
My work has several layers. The first is my research of leukaemia and other cancerous diseases, which is linked directly to the development of new diagnostic approaches for patients with haematological cancers, especially for the most common leukaemia in adults – chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
The second area is genetics and genomics, focused not only on haematology and oncology patients but also on patients with hereditary diseases and on analysing the genetic information of the healthy population. For example, I am currently coordinating the Genome of Europe project on behalf of the Czech Republic. As part of this Europe-wide initiative, we will contribute a dataset of three thousand genomes from healthy individuals, which will be incorporated into the broader European genomic resource. The aim is to define what the reference European genome looks like and to determine whether significant differences exist between individual European populations. This will be useful not only for research but also directly for medical diagnostics and for designing preventive measures and screening programmes.
In this field, I also coordinated the Analysis of Czech Genomes for Theranostics project, whose acronym A-C-G-T corresponds to the letters of the genetic alphabet. However, both of these areas of interest are closely connected, because in both healthy individuals and patients with haematological cancers, we analyse the genome and determine which genetic variants or mutations occur and which may predispose them to certain diseases.
Cancer cells always contain genomic changes that contribute to tumour development, and during the course of the disease these changes often accumulate. Individual tumour clones with different genetic characteristics even compete with one another – a process known as clonal evolution. For many years now, we have been selecting the most suitable therapy for patients with haematological cancers based on the genetic properties of their tumour cells. We are at the forefront of this field in Europe. Our team serves as the coordinator and main author of international medical guidelines for the diagnosis of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which are followed by clinical centres across Europe.
How would you describe the situation today compared to ten years ago, and where do you see the greatest shift in your research?
The development of modern technologies has had a fundamental impact on research and diagnostics in molecular genetics. When the first human genome was analysed – this study was completed in 2003 – it took more than ten years and involved many research centres around the world. A few years later, entirely new technologies were developed, known as next-generation sequencing (NGS), or massive parallel sequencing, which dramatically accelerated our ability to read genetic information.
Thanks to this, we are now able to read the entire human genome of an individual, or that of other organisms, within hours. At the same time, the cost has dropped significantly. While reading the first genome cost several billion US dollars, the current price is several thousand Czech crowns, and it keeps going down. This is excellent news for both biomedical research and medical diagnostics.
Have you experienced those “Eureka!” moments as a researcher? What are you fascinated by – or were in the past? Which moments have stood out for you?
You could say that I have been engaged in research since high school and my first student research project. After studying molecular biology and genetics at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, I worked at the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Masaryk Oncology Institute. Following internships abroad in the United Kingdom and Austria, I returned to Masaryk University and the Brno University Hospital.
My research career has gone through various stages – from the early days in the laboratory, when I felt the thrill of success every time an experiment worked and confirmed our theoretical expectations. Each of these successes, however, was the result of a lot of work and many experiments that had to come before.
After progressing through the student, trainee, doctoral and postdoctoral researcher stages, I became the head of a laboratory research team, which gradually grew in size. As a result, unfortunately, I no longer spend time performing experiments myself – but I can still experience the excitement of success. I could feel it when we have successfully tackled large projects to reveal the genetic make-up of the Czech population.
I would also like to mention one unusual multidisciplinary project that went beyond the usual scope of work of our research team. It involved studying the genetic information of the founder of genetics, Gregor Johann Mendel, in collaboration with the Augustinian Abbey in Old Brno. The project brought together experts from many fields, including archaeologists, anthropologists, geneticists, bioinformaticians and more.
From the start, it was a bold project because we had no idea whether we would be able to identify Mendel’s genetic information at all or find anything interesting in it. To our surprise, we discovered even more than we expected. In addition to identifying Mendel, we also uncovered previously unknown remains of his predecessor and mentor, Abbot Napp, and identified the probable cause of Mendel’s death. The project even helped spark further interdisciplinary collaborations at Masaryk University.
You are also active in popularising science and supporting young researchers. Why is this important for you?
I am very pleased that, in my current role as Vice-Rector of Masaryk University, I have the opportunity to directly set up mechanisms to support young scientists. Through the Masaryk University Grant Agency, we have introduced several programmes designed to attract promising new researchers to our university (the MASH schemes). We have also launched the Career Restart programme, which supports researchers returning after maternity or parental leave. I am very glad that we have already been able to support dozens of young researchers through these programmes, with more to come.
I also try to support young colleagues within my own research team and to make sure they have good conditions for their work, including financial security. I am proud that many of them have made the most of these opportunities and that several of my former doctoral students are now excellent researchers with their own independent research groups, prestigious grants and awards. That brings me great joy.
When it comes to popularising science for the public, I believe that researchers as a whole still have a lot of work to do. Many consider it unnecessary to try and communicate their research results in an accessible way. Explaining the essence of complex experiments, and their potential applications, is often very challenging – yet crucial, as I gradually came to understand.
I am very pleased that in recent years, I have been able to contribute to popularising genetics and other fields through the Mendel Summer Festival, where we organise public lectures. We invite a wide range of experts, and it is very rewarding to see that the lectures attract a large audience from the general public.
Alongside your research, you also serve as Vice-Rector for Research and Doctoral Studies, which must be very time-consuming. Are there ways in which this role helps you as a researcher – or perhaps the opposite?
Balancing the role of Vice-Rector with leading my own research team is certainly a big challenge. However, I do believe it is important and beneficial for a Vice-Rector for Research and Doctoral Studies to remain actively involved in research, manage grant projects, including international ones, and stay in contact with doctoral students. I am very pleased that fourteen of the doctoral students I have supervised have successfully defended their theses, and I believe two more will complete their programme in the coming year.
Masaryk University is a multidisciplinary institution with ten faculties and two university institutes, and there are considerable differences between the disciplines in terms of research, publication practices, and the structure of doctoral studies. Understanding these differences and coordinating them for the benefit of the university is very interesting – and often very challenging – for me. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues from various faculties for the many discussions and for working together to find compromises between different disciplines. I have undoubtedly gained valuable lessons and experience from this work, which benefit my own research.
You have received many professional awards over the course of your career. How do you view this latest one: coming from the Prague Castle, does it hold special significance for you?
It is an enormous honour for me, and I greatly value this recognition from the President of the Czech Republic. I see it not only as an award for the research and professional work of our entire team, but also as recognition of the work I strive to do for the scientific community in my role as Vice-Rector.
At Masaryk University, we are, I believe, pioneers in several areas of research and science management. For example, we have introduced systematic allocation of research funding based on performance indicators, mechanisms for internal evaluation of research and doctoral studies, and support for individual researchers through the Masaryk University Grant Agency. This includes new programmes such as MASH, for incoming junior researchers, and Career Restart, for researchers returning after a career break.
I am truly grateful that the President chose to recognise this work, which spans basic biomedical research, the introduction of new approaches in medical diagnostics, coordination of science and research activities, support for other researchers, and the popularisation of science. I would, however, like to emphasise that this is by no means just my own work – none of this would be possible without a team of excellent colleagues. I am grateful that I have been able to work with them, and I look forward to many more years of our teamwork.