The Prestigious Prize for the Best Basic Research Was Awarded to Professor Marek Eliáš from the Faculty of Science
Congratulations!
The Czech Science Foundation (GACR) awards the prizes in the areas of technical, physical, medical and biological sciences, social sciences and humanities and agricultural and biological-environmental sciences. Marek Eliáš excelled in the last mentioned one with his project The Dark Side of Plastid Biology: Evolution and Function of Leucoplasts in Algae.
The laureates of the GACR President's Award are selected through a transparent selection procedure on the recommendation of several hundred scientists. Each laureate receives a financial award in the amount of 100 000 CZK.
“The project has made a major contribution to a better understanding of the evolution and function of plastids ‒ cellular organelles present in plant and algal cells. It mapped the metabolic functions of the plastid of a unicellular flagellate organism, the colourless euglenid. Furthermore, professor Eliáš also discovered a new lineage of non-photosynthesizing algal flagellates with an extremely large plastid genome, and uncovered a hidden plastid in an amoebic organism of the Leukarachinon genus,” as stated in the project evaluation.
The prestigious prize for the best basic research was awarded to Martin Pivokonský (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Vladimír Šindelář (Masaryk University), Zdeněk Lánský (BIOCEV Biotechnology and Biomedicine Centre as the joint venture of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Charles University), Klára Šeďová (Masaryk University) and Marek Eliáš (University of Ostrava).
Marek Eliáš is a graduate of the Faculty of Science, Charles University. Since 2021, he has been a part of the Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava.
Updated: 15. 10. 2021
