The Becquerel Prize is the confirmation of Lenka Kubíčková’s extraordinary achievements in science. The highest award given by the French Embassy in Prague in the category for Ph.D. students in the field of nuclear research was presented to a fresh Ph.D. by the Nobel Prize winner Jean-Maria Lehn and the French Ambassador Alexis Dutertre. The award ceremony, where twenty-three prizes in seven competition categories were awarded, took place at the Buquoy Palace at the end of September.
In the competition, Lenka Kubíčková presented basic research with application overlap into medicine in the field of contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging, a substantial part of which took place in the Department of Magnetics and Superconductors at the FZU. She focused on nuclear methods of solid-state research – Mössbauer spectroscopy and neutron diffraction – and on the analysis of the effectiveness of contrast agents using nuclear magnetic resonance.
For your dissertation you have won the first place in this year's Henri Becquerel Prize. What do you think makes your thesis special?
It might have been interdisciplinarity of my thesis which could have drawn the committee's attention – our research covers the boundaries of solid-state physics, inorganic chemistry, biology and biomedicine. The potential use of our results in medicine and the fact that the presented results were supported by twelve articles in impacted journals could also have been attractive. Although winning the award is a great honour for me, in our field, a wider team always contributes to the results achieved, which I emphasized also during the competition. I am grateful to my colleagues for their help and I would definitely not want to take their credit.
Why did you decide to focus on the properties of magnetic nanoparticles?
From an early age, I was interested in biology, I also participated in the Biological Olympiad, and I started to study the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University with the idea that I would focus on biophysics. However, I soon had a chance to visit a laboratory of Mössbauer spectroscopy. This method obtains information about substances through transitions between the energy levels of atomic nuclei, which – to be honest – continues to fascinate me.
Magnetic nanoparticles were in the portfolio of problems that were solved in the laboratory, their research was conducted in cooperation with the FZU and the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM). I liked that this topic offered, in addition to basic physical research, a connection to biology and medicine. In the end, instead of biophysics, I continued in the field of condensed matter physics and focused on the characterization and physical properties of nanoparticles, including their magnetic behaviour.
Did you have to overcome obstacles at work, or did everything go smoothly?
I was very lucky with my supervisor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Associate Professor Jaroslav Kohout, as well as with my consultant and leader of the group of which I am a part of at the Department of Magnetics and Superconductors, Dr. Ondřej Kaman. Throughout my Ph.D. studies, I had their full support and trust, which I highly appreciate, and I would like to thank them very much in this way, too. I would also like to thank the other colleagues and the head of the Department of Magnetics and Superconductors, Dr. Jiří Hejtmánek. Thanks to them, I did not encounter any major obstacles at work.
I would, however, like to take this opportunity to mention one unpleasant phenomenon that we have repeatedly encountered during the review process of our publications. Some of the reviewers provide unprofessional but very critical reviews, in which they require quotes from many of their own works that are completely irrelevant to the topic of the article being reviewed. Judging by the number of citations of these required works and the exponential growth of the h-index of the authors concerned, they are getting away with it. Please, let us not encourage such unethical practices by submitting to them.
Magnetic nanoparticles are used in the field of contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. Can you estimate future development and possible improvements in their use for MRI?
Research in the field of contrast agents is increasingly shifting to the field of organic chemistry, biochemistry and physiology. A burning problem that has not yet been satisfactorily solved by the use of nanoparticles in MRI is active and selective targeting of particular areas in the body that we are interested in. Contrast agents based on iron oxide nanoparticles approved for use in clinical practice have targeted cells of the mononuclear phagocytic system, e.g. in the liver or lymph nodes, which have the search for and elimination of similar foreign bodies in the body directly in their job description.
The modern trend and thus also the direction in which the future of contrast agents will proceed is to give magnetic nanoparticles other functions, in addition to the contrast effect in MRI. These can be various "improvements" that allow nanoparticles to be used not only in MRI or possibly in magnetic nanoparticle (MPI) imaging, but also in other imaging methods, such as computed tomography (CT) or photoacoustics. Also, a drug can be encapsulated in the nanoparticle package, which will be released at a required point. The combination of diagnostics, in this case in the form of contrast in MRI, with the therapeutic effect gave rise to a new field, the so-called teranostics. We can already find many different fantastic concepts in the literature, but their possible use in clinical practice can be a matter of several decades.
How does it feel to receive the prize from the hands of the Nobel Prize winner?
Naturally, I was very nervous, it was a great honour for me. On the other hand, Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, who acted as a presenter during the evening, was very modest, friendly, and made various "jokes". Then, when it came to the Becquerel Prize among the scientific prizes, I felt as if I were accepting the prize from any other more experienced colleague who I respect.
The price includes a month-long stay in a French laboratory. Have you already chosen?
A month-long stay in a French laboratory was part of the prize for the first two places, however, we only found out the final ranking of the winners during the ceremony. So far, I have not arranged a stay with any specific French group, I will probably contact one of the groups from the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) or the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble. Both institutions are flagships of European research (not only) in the field of solids and manage excellent instrumentation that uses neutrons or synchrotron radiation to gain a deeper insight into the studied substances unattainable under normal laboratory conditions. I enjoy learning new things and I'm already looking forward to the stay.
In the future, you would like to focus on magnetism in solids, so I would like to ask about your next career plans.
I would like to spend a year two in Germany on a postdoctoral internship, ideally from next year. However, I would like to return to the Czech Republic, preferably to the Institute of Physics, and continue my work there.
Every year, the French Embassy in the Czech Republic announces a competition in seven areas for a high-quality thesis created by university students as part of their Ph.D. studies. The first three awards in each category will receive a financial reward and the first two winners will also receive a scholarship from the embassy for a month-long stay in a French laboratory of their choice. Nuclear Research Prize – The Becquerel Prize is awarded by the French Embassy in the Czech Republic together with Électricité de France.