Innovative Prague XVIII
Prague is not only an amazing historical city with a wealth of monuments, excellent gastronomy, cordial residents, and a wide range of events. It is also a modern and innovative science hub. Prague excels in many fields, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, biomedicine, low-carbon technologies, data technologies and selected creative industries, providing ideal opportunities for holding conventions and conferences with the matching topics.
In the eighteenth edition of Innovative Prague, we will bring you not only latest news from the Czech science, but we will present you also the recent discoveries and emerging institutions. You will find out how the Czech Republic expands its educational bases, how it will finance new projects and let the world know about them.
Czechia Opens New Science Centres
The development of science research continues in Prague. The Prague City Hall opened new educational centre HW Lab at the Prague Congress Centre at the beginning of June. The new lab will serve especially to primary and secondary schools for better connection of students and teachers with technologies. Students will be able to discover augmented and virtual reality, 3D printers or learn more about robotics. Various workshops will further support technical development also in professional world. Technological education in Prague thus made further steps in its improvement.
Czech science and research expand also across the ocean – namely to the USA. The Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, as one of the most successful Czech research institutions, established its laboratory there. Based on the information by VědaVýzkum.cz website, the Institute is also the first science organization to build its branch in the midst of scientific research in Boston - in the company of such institutions as the Harvard University, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) or the Center for Clinical Research, where the scientists will be able to follow the recent trends and discoveries first hand. In future, the new branch should expand by one or two new laboratories.
Websites VědaVýzkum.cz informed, that in April this year, the realization of the Biocentre in Albertov campus began. A modern educational centre will focus on biomedicine and apart from the classrooms and auditorium will also include specialized laboratories and conference rooms.
Czech Innovations Presented Worldwide and heir Financial Support
Czech discoveries and innovations are used globally. The Czech science accomplishments are promoted also via the second issue of the Czech Strategic Technologies – CST catalogue that presents them to the world. News site Novinky.cz informed that the know-how summarized into the 300pages of English content were also transformed into an online version that will be regularly updated. First copies of the catalogue were already distributed at the medical congress in Geneva, to Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, UAE, or to Canada and the US.
The Czech Republic also already knows the answer on how to finance new projects and start-ups. According to the newswire Hrot24, the first venture capital fund in the Czech Republic will be created through the resources of the National Recovery Plan of the Czech Republic for support projects in the fields of AI, technologies and cybersecurity. The fund will be managed by Tensor Ventures selected by the European Investment Fund. Total of 1,25 billion CZK should be invested into around 50 start-ups in the course of five years.
Czech Discoveries for Better Future
New groundbreaking discovery in the field of nanobiotechnologies was achieved by the team of Petr Šulc. Scientists created synthetic DNA molecules that can self-assemble into a three-dimensional nanogrid. Mr. Šulc stated for Wired.cz website that he hopes to use the nanogrid as a metamaterial for optical processors and faster optical signal processing. His attention is also focused on the application of this discovery in medicine.
In recent years, the Czech Republic has also been gaining ground in the space industry. At the J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry, scientists invented SELINA device that is now in the centre of interest of the NASA. VědaVýzkum.cz websites informed about the purchase price of the device: around 10 million CZK, and about the scientists’ plan to strengthen the position of the Institute as an excellent research centre using the resources acquired by the sale.
With the help of artificial intelligence, we can today find out what effects certain proteins can have. The research team from the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) of Czech Technical University modelled the structures of proteins composed of individual amino acids and examined the bonds between proteins, how they co-react and how they can be bond better through changes of contained amino acids. AI newly helps to identify faster which parts of proteins needs to be modified to get better bonding. This process will save time to medical professionals, who easily choose such a change in amino acids that will provide better protein bonding. According to Rozhlas.cz websites, this method could be used in new drug development or in research of Alzheimer disease.
The Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) of the Copernicus program provides important information on the pollen situation around the world. Czech company IQVIA, focusing on medicine innovations, uses this data to understand and identify environmental factors affecting health and observes the correlation between allergy medicine sales and pollen concentration. As a result of climate change, the pollen seasons are getting longer, and the incidence of allergic reactions is increasing. Data collected by Copernicus will help to predict the incidence of allergies more accurately and manage their symptoms better.
Would you be interested in learning more interesting facts? Browse through the previous three issues of Innovative Prague: