Neuron's women scientists at the prestigious SingularityU Czech summit
6 April 2019
The physicist Anna Fučíková, the doctor Zuzana Libá and the biologist Helena Fulková. These are three top scientists whom Neuron has honoured for their exceptional scientific work and who will appear at the prestigious SingularityU Czech summit, where visionaries from all over the world regularly gather. The event takes place on 1–2 April 2019 in Prague and the three will appear there in a discussion panel of the Neuron Endowment Fund.
The physicist Anna Fučíková, holder of a 2015 Neuron Impuls, has long studied semiconductor nanoparticles and their optical properties. The results of her research and of the further development of the technology should find application as phosphors for LEDs and solar cells or as fluorescent markers in biology and elsewhere. Thanks in part to the support of the Neuron Endowment Fund she became the only Czech among just 50 women scientists worldwide selected by American diplomacy for the exclusive IVLP exchange programme (International Visitor Leadership Program) for young leaders. She returned from the USA last autumn and describes her experiences in an interview for the Neuron Endowment Fund.
The biologist Helena Fulková, a laureate of the 2016 Neuron Award, is a biologist and the first Czech woman to clone a mouse, thereby helping to look into the mechanisms of reproduction and of reprogramming cells. In her view, cloning animals serves to give us a fuller understanding of the mechanisms connected with reproduction and the reprogramming of cells. The findings may then find application in raising the success rate of artificial insemination or in medicine in cell therapy. Should we be afraid of human clones, in her view? You will find the answer in an interview for Deník N.
The doctor Zuzana Libá, holder of a 2014 Neuron Impuls, studies autoimmune diseases of the brain and spinal cord. Within her Neuron grant she focused on studying these diseases in children, which is rare. The essence of her research is to study the influence of certain proteins on the emergence of inflammation in the CNS. Thanks in part to Neuron's support she discovered that some proteins really can indicate CNS diseases, which could fundamentally help in diagnosing these illnesses (psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes). In a global context the research is unique in the size of its cohort of child patients with autoimmune CNS involvement, in the variety of diagnoses and in the analysis of the data. Listen to how she explained her research for Czech Television.
