prof. Ing. Irena Kratochvílová, Ph.D.
The Technology and Materials for Bioapplications Group focuses on the preparation and analysis of selected nanoparticles and thin films. In the field of nanoparticles, the research is primarily concerned with liposomes, which, due to their biocompatibility, were used in the construction of a vaccine against Lyme disease. The uniqueness of this new vaccine against Lyme disease lies in the design of recombinant antigens. The vaccine was successfully tested in veterinary medicine, and its authors were nominated for the Czech Head Award in 2014 and 2018. For the project Recombinant Vaccine against Lyme Disease, I. Kratochvílová, together with colleagues from the Veterinary Research Institute, Palacký University Olomouc, the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS, and the company Bioveta, received the Best Collaboration of the Year 2014 award and the TA CR Award 2015 (Figs. 1–2). Since 2016, Bioveta has been producing this vaccine for veterinary medicine under the name Borrelym. Currently, experimental studies and theoretical modeling are underway on various types and mechanisms of lipid constructs, specifically designed for vaccine formulations and drug carriers.
Předávání ceny Nejlepší spolupráce roku 2014
In the field of thin films, polycrystalline diamond prepared by chemical vapor deposition was used as a protective coating against high-temperature degradation of nuclear fuel claddings. Coating zirconium alloy fuel claddings with a 300 nm thick polycrystalline diamond layer significantly reduced surface corrosion not only under accident conditions but also during standard operation, thereby extending the service lifetime of fuel in the reactor (Fig. 3). This solution also markedly reduces the environmental burden. Following the European patent, a U.S. patent was also obtained, enabling access to the market with the largest number of nuclear reactors worldwide. The research was supported by extensive testing in collaboration with the U.S. company Westinghouse and involved many students, whose bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral theses received several awards, with results published in prestigious journals. At present, new bilayer coatings for nuclear fuel claddings are being investigated, exploiting the specific behavior of both individual layers and their combinations depending on the deposition technology. A promising approach so far is the combination of a magnetron-sputtered Cr layer with a nanocrystalline diamond layer.
In collaboration with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague and the General University Hospital of the First Faculty of Medicine of Charles University, the group is carrying out the AZV project NW24-08-00048 “Imaging of the Meiotic Spindle in Assisted Reproduction Methods for the Assessment of Oocyte Quality and Embryo Ploidy Using Artificial Intelligence (SMART study).” Machine learning is employed to predict embryo ploidy from polarized light images of oocytes and time-lapse recordings of developing embryos.