MUDr. Martin Bobák, M.Sc., Ph.D.
ERA Chair - Research programme coordinator
Environmental health
The new Environmental health research program is being built to link long-term environmental exposure data with health data of selected populations, taking into account other factors that may negatively affect quality of life and contribute to the development of chronic diseases (so-called exposome factors).
The main objective of this research program is to develop a new experimental and information platform supporting the conventional interpretation of epidemiological and exposure data. It includes:
- Building research capacity for data analysis of long-term population studies, implementation of social and environmental epidemiology methods and tools for diagnosing physical and mental conditions in the monitored individuals
- Introducing experimental (-omics) methods for the study of the human organism
- validating new biomarkers enabling identification of sensitive individuals and populations as well as early diagnosis of early stages of chronic disease development
- developing new methods for integrative data analysis, including machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Within this program, new chemical and biological methods (-omics technologies) are being developed to characterize the status of the individual (epigenome, metagenome, proteome, metabolome…) and the development of selected biomarkers depending on the complex effect of exposome factors. These methods are applied in long-term studies and their results evaluated in the context of available environmental and socio-economic data. An essential part of the research activities will be the development of a bioinformatics platform for statistical processing and integrative analysis of multivariate data, in-silico testing and validation of selected biomarkers, hypothesis testing, and data mining.
Strategic partnerships with University College London and BBMRI ERIC to build this program will be supported in 2019-2026 by the Cetocoen Excellence project from the Teaming Challenge of the European Horizon 2020 Program.
Heads of Research Groups
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Mgr. Hynek Pikhart, Ph.D., M.Sc.
ERA Chair - Environmental epidemiology
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prof. MUDr. Julie Dobrovolná, Ph.D.
Environmental Physiology
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Mgr. Eva Budinská, Ph.D.
Integrative bioinformatics and biostatistics
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doc. RNDr. Pavel Čupr, Ph.D.
Exposure and health risk assessment
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doc. Ing. Vlad Popovici, PhD
Integrative bioinformatics and biostatistics
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doc. RNDr. Petra Bořilová Linhartová, Ph.D., MBA
Environmental Genetics
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RNDr. Ondřej Mikeš, Ph.D.
Junior PI - Exposure and health risk assessment
Junior PIs
Research programs
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Environmental chemistry and modelling
The research programme focuses on understanding the mechanisms and processes affecting the emissions and fate of chemicals in the environment and further expands its interest in study of the exposure of individuals and populations to the environment in order to provide tools for common interpretation of data from environmental monitoring and human biomonitoring networks.
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Environmental health
The new research program deals with biomarkers of exposure, effect and sensitivity of individual organisms, and other factors such as socio-economic determinants of health, nutrition or physical activity. In this context, we are strengthening technology capabilities for omics analyses, biobanking capacities and developing a bioinformatics platform to support the interpretation of multi-omics and epidemiological data.
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Environmental Toxicology
Programme focuses on the environmental impacts of both acute and chronic chemical exposures. We use the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) combining modeling and testing strategies to predict the environmental impacts of complex chemical mixtures. We investigate combined exposures to various factors that, based on individual susceptibility, can significantly contribute to an individual's excessive burden and lead to the development of pathologies.
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Chemical Tools for Diagnostics and Therapy
The programme focuses on the development of new photoactivatable systems and supramolecular carriers as specific systems that exhibit specific biological activities or serve as auxiliary systems for biological or medical applications.
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Loschmidt laboratories of Protein Engineering
The research programme has been dealing with the basic principles of enzymatic catalysis and development of protein and cellular biocatalysts for environmental, chemical and biomedical applications. The program uses protein engineering, synthetic biology and analysis of large data stored in genomic databases to develop and prepare useful catalysts.