Czech Science Foundation (GACR) has announced results of this year round of research proposal's funding. Members of SECANTOX group were involved in preparation of two proposals, which were positively evaluated and approved for funding. Iva Sovadinova received a funding for a three-year (2016-2018) junior research project titled "Gap junctional intercellular communication as a target of endocrine disruptors in testicular cells". Pavel Babica is a co-investigator from RECETOX, Masaryk University, in a three-year joint research project with Institute of Biophysics. The project's pricnipal investigator is Dr. Lenka Šindlerová-Švihálková , and the project will focus on "Importance of Toll-like receptors in intestinal epithelium response to cyanobacterial water bloom". In addition to that, GACR has approved funding of a project prepared by Prof. Gerhard Lammel (RECETOX, Masaryk University) which focuses on the environmental chemistry and toxicity of transformation products of monocyclic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The project involves also our collaborators Dr. Klára Hilscherová and Dr. Jiří Novák, and it is very likely that in vitro models and techniques used and developed within SECANTOX research group might be used also in connection to this research project. Finally, research proposals of our collaborators outside of RECETOX are planned to be supported by GACR. Dr. Karel Šmejkal from University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences is a principal investigator of a research project focusing on antiinflammatory activity of stilbenes. Research of Dr. Pavel Hrouzek from Algatech / Institute of Microbiology, ASCR focusing on cyanobacterial lipopeptides will be also supported by GACR in the next three years. Pavel BBC
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Ondra Brózman took part in a contest of diploma thesis in environmental and ecological sciences, which were defended in 2015. The contest was organized by Lipka (an environmental educational and training institution) and supported by South Moravian Region. The final ceremony and presentations of theses were held on November 25, 2015, and Ondra's thesis titled "Epigenetic mechanisms of toxicity using in vitro model of respiratory system" received a committee's Special Award for the Distinguished Scientific Contribution! Congratulations! More details about the contest, results and abstract book can be found here and here. Pavel BBC
Honza Raška, a Ph.D. student from the SECANTOX research group at RECETOX, applied for this year "The Brno Ph.D. Talent Award". This contest is organized by South Moravian Centre for International Mobility (JCMM), which is a specialized nonprofit organization providing support and assistance to talented students and researchers based in the South Moravian Region. It was a great success, that Honza's proposal titled "Liver homeostasis disruption by cyanobacterial toxins" had been selected for the final round of competition, which included platform presentations of the finalists in front of a scientific committee. Apparently, Honza did a good job even there, since the committee decided to award him with the Brno Ph.D. Talent award and scholarship! Many congratulations! Pavel BBC
This Tuesday, we received greatly expected package from our collaborators at Michigan State University, Prof. Brad Upham, C. C. Chang and James Trosko. The package contained a cell culture of adult human liver stem cell line HL1-1, which were isolated by C. C. Chang during his sabbatical in Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan in 2003. The cells are characterized by expression of some stem cell and oval cell markers, ability of symmetric and asymmetric cell division, absence of gap junctional intercellular communication, and high proliferation potential in vitro. The first report on these cells was published in 2004, followed by the paper of Tai et al. in Carcinogenesis from 2005. These cells were further used by Sun Tae Kim during for his doctoral thesis research, who investigated effects of AhR- and PPAR- agonists on the cells, with the results published in Toxicological Sciences in 2009 and Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2013. Dr. Kim also immortalized HL1-1 cells with either SV40 or human telomerase (hTERT). Both parental HL1-1 cells as well as hTERT-immortalized cell line HL1-hT1 were used to study effects of alcohol on differentiation of adult liver stem cells into hepatic lineages, and the results were published in Journal of Stem Cell Research and Therapy in 2014. We have been working with the immortalized HL1-hT1 cells in our lab for about two years, but the parental cell line HL1-1 will significantly increase our options and allow validation of the results obtained with HL1-hT1 cells. We hope that we will further exploit the potential of these very unique liver cell lines, which represent very promising tool for studying human-relevant hepatotoxic and hepatocarcinogenic effects of chemicals in vitro, Many thanks to Michigan State for sharing the cell line and giving us the opportunity to work with this in vitro model in our lab! Pavel BBC
Ondrej Adamovsky is visiting Salt Lake City, UT, where SETAC North America Meeting is taking place in between Nov 1-5, 2015. Members of SECANTOX group contributed to the experimental results of the study supervised by Ondra, which focused on immunomodulatory effects of cyanobacterial toxin microcystin-LR. A poster with a summary of the results will be presented at the conference: Adamovsky, O., Moosova, Z., Pekarova, M., Basu, A., Babica, P., Svihalkova-Sindlerova, L., Kubala, L., Blaha, L.: Immunomodulatory potency of an important water polluting cyanobacterial toxin. Pavel BBC
There are three new students, who are joining SECANTOX research group to work on their Bachelor's degree theses. Eliška Blažková, Zuzana Kolářová and Tomáš Cimr are enrolled at Masaryk University, in the third year of Bachelor's degree programme in Experimental Biology, the field of study in Special Biology, with specialization in Ecotoxicology (guaranteed by RECETOX). Eliška will be working on the topic of "In Vitro Testicular Toxicity Models" under supervision of Iva Sovadinova, Zuzana will focus on the issue of cyanobacterial toxins in drinking water treatment plants ("Cyanotoxin removal in drinking water treatment plants") under supervision of Pavel Babica and Libor Jaša, Tomáš will study methods for assessment of cytotoxicity in spheroid cell cultures ("Cytotoxicity assessment using spheroid cell cultures") with the guaidance of Pavel Babica, Amrita Basu and Lucka Čtveráčková. Thank you for your interest in our research, we are happy to have you around, and welcome on board! Pavel BBC
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