On Thursday, May 7, IPHYS was visited by the President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prof. Radomír Pánek, accompanied by three members of the Academy Council. The morning program featured a presentation on the Institute’s main activities, followed by an open discussion of current topics in Czech science and the future direction of both IPHYS and the Czech Academy of Sciences.
In his opening presentation, the Director of IPHYS, Ondřej Kuda, introduced IPHYS’s unique approach to studying lifestyle-related diseases, spanning from the molecular level to whole organisms, as well as the IPHYS development strategy through 2030. The President was particularly interested in plans to increasingly integrate artificial intelligence tools into the processing of large-scale clinical data. Together with the IPHYS management, the Academy Council representatives also discussed opportunities for collaboration with other biomedical centres in the Czech Republic, growing demands for secure data storage, and funding for infrastructure renewal.
The program also included visits to two research support facilities. Tomáš Čajka presented high-throughput technologies for the analysis of small molecules and metabolites of the Laboratory of Translational Metabolism, while Kristina Bardová introduced new facilities for experimental animal work at the Department of Phenotyping of Energy Metabolism.
In the final part of the morning program, President Pánek met with more than one hundred IPHYS employees. He presented the Academy Council’s activities and outlined plans for the further development of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He also answered questions regarding the budget, support for doctoral studies, and cooperation with universities and public administration. The visit concluded with a joint lunch with the IPHYS management and members of the Board of IPHYS.
