News

prof. MUDr. Ondřej Fiala, Ph.D., Professor of internal medicine

prof. RNDr. Pavel Souček, CSc., Professor of biochemistry

From May 26 to 28, the XLV meeting of the Czech-Slovak Society of Medical Biophysics (DLB) took place in Pilsen as annual gathering to share latest news on how Physics theory and practice is applied to Biomedicine. This year, the organizing committee was made from our collaborators from the Department of Biophysics of our Faculty. Members of our team attended the event in active or passive participation including Dr. Vladimira Moulisova (presentation on the in vivo implantation of decellularized liver scaffolds in the porcine omentum), Ing. Miroslav Jirik (on how software models and neural networks are applied in medicine), Ing. Maria Stefania Massaro (on the development of bioreactors for scaffolds repopulation) and Petr Hosek. Collateral activities included a visit to the DronySIT company premises in Pilsen for a show about their drone technology or the visit to the city's famous Pilsner Urquell Brewery. The meeting ended with the delegation from Olomouc (organizers of the next DLB) visiting the new building of our Faculty of Medicine.

From May 17 to 19, an annual meeting of research teams from not only our medical faculty, but also our partners from the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Public Health, took place in Javorná for the 13th time. The meeting was joined by our foreign scientists and students and a total of 35 researchers participated, presenting mostly results of their recent scientific activities. The event was also a working meeting of the investigators of the Chaperon Horizon 2020 project. The program was divided into two evenings packed with expert lectures, followed by discussion on the subject. Javorná meetings offer an excellent opportunity to discuss new ideas for further collaboration as well as technical and professional issues of current projects. As the nature near the Šumava National Park offers many hiking trails and views, most participants went for a short walk to Pancíř on Saturday morning despite the rainy and muddy conditions. The meeting was a very pleasant inspiration and motivation for further scientific activities and cooperation. On the way back to Pilsen, a few of our Team members stopped by the town of Přestice to pay homage at the black spotted pigs monument dedicated to the porcine breed we use in our research. More pictures taken during the meeting are available here. 

A group of researchers from our Laboratory just published their research on decellularized vena cava grafts orthotopically implanted in a pig model.

Within 28 days after implantation, the decellularized veins were fully recellularized with endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells. Quantitative histological analysis showed a comparable amount of smooth muscle actin in the repopulated decellularized grafts similar to the native IVC. Lymphocyte infiltrates representing signs of graft rejection were not detected in the pigs, as opposed to the control group that received the allogeneic grafts. The decellularized grafts provoked a higher incidence of thrombosis in comparison with allogeneic grafts (33.3 vs. 12.5%) but majority of the grafts remained patent. 

Full link to the paper can be found here. 

We participated in the Closing Conference of the Chaperon project organized by the Laboratory of Translational Cancer Genomics. In the last 5 years, this project aimed at establishing a brand new Laboratory lead by prof. Kari Hemminki to study cancer genomics in a close collaboration with our own Laboratory and other partners. This conference was the proper celebration of the achievements of our partners in the EU funded project. 

More on the Chaperon project can be found here http://chaperon.lfp.cuni.cz/ 

We are collaborating with the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art from University of West Bohemia on the design of a holder for our liver scaffold during the decellularization and in a recent meeting to share the progress, our partners showed us the overall concept of our prototype using virtual reality. It was a funny occasion to explore the world of virtual reality and its application in science and research.