Principals presented the top-ranked projects completed in 2024

Seventy participants attended the annual conference of the ČR Medical Research Agency, which took place on 10 September 2025 at the Dean's Office of the 1st Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University, where the top-ranked projects completed in 2024 were presented. 

"Our agency's annual conferences are a unique opportunity to showcase excellent applied health research projects and it is a great pleasure for me personally to see their quality grow year on year. This is also evidenced by the fact that the expert evaluation panels find it more difficult every year to select the really best results among the top ones," said Ondřej Slabý, Chair AZV ČR, at the beginning of the meeting and praised all the successful research teams for their work.

As reminded by Health Minister Vlastimil Válek, the AZV ČR entered its second decade of operation this year. "During this time, it has become a fully-fledged scientific research agency that completely covers biomedical research. It has strong international prestige, dramatically increasing quality of projects, incredibly strong facilities and excellent leadership. This means that the Agency is now fully mature and I wish it to continue the trend that has been set," said Minister Válek.

Based on the nomination of the expert panels, the following projects were presented at the conference:

P01 Metabolic and endocrine diseases

  • doc. MUDr. Vladimíra Fejfarová, Ph.D.: Rationalization of antibiotic therapy of infection in diabetic foot syndrome and its relation to the gastrointestinal tract
  • doc. MUDr. Jan Polák, Ph.D.: New lipolysis inhibitors in the treatment of lipid and glucose metabolism disorders in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome

P02 Diseases of the circulatory system

  • doc. MUDr. Ing. Jakub Cvek, Ph.D.: Stereotactic ablative radiosurgery for recurrent ventricular tachycardia in structural heart disease
  • prof. MUDr. Jiří Moláček, Ph.D.: Biomechanically defined absorbable materials for cardiovascular surgery

P03 Tumour diseases

  • prof. MUDr. Pavel Dundr, Ph.D.: Rare gynaecological sarcomas (REGYS study)
  • prof. MUDr. Jan Zuna, Ph.D.: Clinical and biological issues of BCR-ABL1-positive leukemias

P04 Neuroscience and mental health

  • doc. MUDr. Martina Bočková, Ph.D.: Clinical response to STN-DBS in Parkinson's disease: the influence of vascular, cardiovascular, metabolic and inflammatory comorbidities
  • prof. MUDr. Evžen Růžička, DrSc.: Gait disorders, postural stability and cognition in Parkinson's disease: presymptomatic detection and targeted rehabilitation

P05 Immune disorders and infectious diseases

  • prof. RNDr. Ivo Rudolf, Ph.D.: Hidden zoonoses - detection of new pathogens from the wild

P06 Organ dysfunction and critical care medicine

  • prof. MUDr. Ivan Čundrle, Ph.D.: Respiratory muscle training as a method of pre-habilitation before lung resection surgery

P07 Age-specific disease groups

  • Mgr. Martina Živná, Ph.D.: Identification and characterization of genetic factors of hereditary tubulointerstitial kidney disease II
  • doc. MUDr. Michal Zápotocký, Ph.D.: Molecular genetic characterization of childhood brain tumors associated with cancer predisposition syndromes

P08 Biomedical technologies

  • prof. MUDr. Vojtěch Havlas, Ph.D.: Biodegradable magnesium-based implants with optimized microstructure and controlled absorption rate

P09 Public health and nursing

  • prof. MUDr. Helena Žemličková, Ph.D.: Characterization of Haemophilus influenzae strains with non-enzymatic resistance to betalactam antibiotics in the Czech Republic.
  • doc. PhDr. Radka Bužgová, Ph.D.: Supporting healthy aging: the use of educational and psychosocial interventions for maintaining mental health, prevention and early diagnosis of depression, anxiety and cognitive disorders in seniors in the community

Many thanks to all the speakers, conference participants and the 1st Faculty of Medicine of Charles University for providing the facilities! We look forward to seeing you again next year! ☺