Zprávy ze zahraničních cest

A five-day excursion was conducted on 2-6 May 2022 with 1st year students of the follow-up Master's degree in courses dealing with intensive aquaculture and pond aquaculture. A total of 24 different facilities, organizations and locations in three countries (AT, CZ, SK) were visited. These included different types of facilities: ponds, fish hatcheries, aquaponics, RAS, educational organizations, public aquariums and exhibitions, trout farms, fish processing plants, fish stores, etc. The program included an active tasting of fish specialties and products. The time schedule and program of the excursion was fulfilled and as a bonus we were able to be present at the artificial spawning of the Danube salmon, which was an unforgettable experience for many participants.

The realization of the excursion was financially supported by the Interreg programme within the ATCZ221-Algae4fish project (programme in Austria and South Moravia) and by faculty resources for the teaching of the IACS (other locations). Thank you!

Ing. Ján Regenda, Ph.D., prof. Ing. Jan Kouřil, Ph.D.

From 14 to 18 January 2024, I participated together with the Rector of JU, Prof. Bohumil Jirousek, PhD, and the Vice-Rector for International Relations of JU, doc. PaedDr. Radka Závodská, Ph.D.  The meeting was held under the auspices of the partner university - Polytechnic Opole in Poland. It was attended by all project partners from 12 universities across Europe. At the meeting, the rectors present signed a joint project submission agreement to establish a new KreativEU consortium. The final project application, including budget and indicators, was also discussed. In an informal meeting, new personal contacts were also formed between the consortium members. Participation in the event was funded by ERAZMUS+ mobility.

Foto: J. Regenda

From 26 to 29 September 2023, the 28th Carp Conference took place in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland, on the Vistula River. The event was organized by Polskie towarzystwo rybackie and was attended by 200 participants. I was invited to the conference to give a lecture "Current situation in fish farming in the Czech Republic - hot topics: fish marketing, water quality and fish predators". The information about the state of Czech aquaculture and their current problems was very attractive for the audience. The conference featured a series of interesting and inspiring lectures, especially in the area of fish marketing and consumption, with a focus on carp. It was also possible to establish a number of personal contacts for further cooperation.

Participation in the conference was supported by the NAZV project No. QK22020144 "Species and technological diversification of the production fishery in the Czech Republic to promote its efficiency and competitiveness", which is funded by the programme of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, EARTH.

J. Regenda

On June 19-23, 2023, we participated in the S.M.I.L.E (Summer Modules for Intercultural and Language Education) language course at the Savoie Mont Blanc University in the French city of Chambéry as part of the ERASMUS+ program.

Within the course, we improved our communication language skills and met representatives from universities from all over the world, with whom we can establish cooperation in the future.

The goal of the trip was not only to study the English language, but also to network and get to know the local culture.

Malkusová Monika, Dubová Jaroslava

I took three months internship at the Department of Molecular Sciences, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala (SLU), from 1^st April to 30^th June 2022. During the internship, I gained considerable knowledge about the biochemical responses of aquatic organisms to emerging contaminants and tried to improve my skills in statistical analysis, evaluation and interpretation of data. That was very useful in the field of my PhD program and for my future career. I attended a three-week internship course at SLU on strategies of scientific writing and selecting topics in food and feed sciences (certificate was delivered). In addition, I also statistically evaluated and prepared the results for the project on the toxicological effects of pharmaceutical compounds on crayfish.

As part of project  Interreg I met Michael Fischer at the Danube University in Krems and we discussed the current problems of ongoing experiments.

At 11:00 a.m. in Vienna at Café Goldegg, Argentinierstraße 49, I met doc. Patricia Engel and doc. Manfred Mayer and we discussed the technical possibilities of building a scanner for manuscripts.

The project is supported by the INTERREG V-A program Austria – Czech.

Written by: Prof. Dalibor Štys

A three-month (August- October, 2023) internship was undertaken at the University of Galway, Ireland, under the supervision of Dr. Alex Wan.The internship aimed to gain experience in nutritional requirements and physiological understanding of shellfish and fish. During the training, experimental and statistical design methods were taught and practised. This includes the reduction of animals used in trials through statistical validation methods (i.e., power statisticG*Power and 3R The Experimental Design Assistant). I also learned biochemical analysis and developed new research skills in shellfish aquaculture. Furthermore, I participated in a series of studies:

1) Isolation of probiotic bacteria from spiny lobsters (Palinurus elephas) and European lobsters (Homarus gammarus).

2) Survey of wild spiny lobster and European lobsters for the understanding of their nutritional profile.

3) Literature review on the comparison of spiny lobster and European lobster genome research.

4) Colour preference in European lobster juveniles.

At the end of the internship, I attained practical skills and knowledge in lobster biology and gross anatomy. Additionally, I acquired significant skills in data analysis and statistics and writing coherent articles for the scientific community and a broader public audience. I am extremely grateful to the Erasmus + program and the Faculty of Fisheries and Protection of Waters USB for supporting this training.

Miroslav Boček, Petra Plachtová and Michaela Vazačová visited the Norwegian partner of the project: “TO DISCOVER AND PROTECT: Endangered worlds of water ecosystem and its biodiversity”, Nr. 3201400019. The project was funded from The Programme „Environment, Ecosystems and Climate Change“financed from Norway Grants 2014–2021. They share information about innovative approaches to the protection of aquatic ecosystems and endangered species (topics: Sustainable aquaculture and Fish migration) in the Norwegian University of Life Sciences through international meetings and workshops.

On June 30 and July 1, I made a trip to the region of Upper Austria as part of the Algae4fish/ATCZ221 project. The destination of the trip was the company Holzinger Fischverarbeitungs GmbH near the town of Wels. It is the second largest fish processing plant in Austria, with a processing potential of around 200 tons of fish per year. As part of the meeting, the Algae4fish/ATCZ221 project was presented, and possibilities for cooperation were discussed. On the recommendation of Mgr Holzinger, I visited a small family business focused on the sale and processing of fresh fish and products in the village of Moos, where the project was also presented, including the establishment of potential cooperation.

The business trip was supported by the ERDF within the Programme INTERREG V-A Austria-Czech Republic, project ATCZ221/Algae4Fish.

Written by: Ing. Václav Nebeský Ph.D.

From 5th to 11th June, I attend international conference focused on biomarkers in ecosystems – ISOECOL 2022, Gaming, Austria. During this conference I present poster entitled: The effect of temperature on trophic discrimination factor (¹³C and ¹⁵N) and biokinetic in cyprinid fish.

Dr. Carlos Yanes met with the Blue planet company biology staff from 9 to 13:30. The main meeting focus was on building a new system for a rotifer system for new prototype.

From 22th till 26th November 2021 I attended an intensive English course in English in Cyprus, Limmasol. It was a weekly language course with an hourly allowance of 25 teaching lessons.

I have completed two months traineeship in the Laboratory of Fish Physiology and Genomics, INRAE in Rennes, France from 10 January to 10 March, 2022. During my stay, I have learnt the knowledge of epigenetics and bioinformatics analysis. It was a great opportunity to explore new techniques and data analysis methods which is very useful for my PhD study. In addition, I had an opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Catherine Labbé. This trip was a very good experience to develop my knowledge on molecular biology and techniques which would be useful for my future research works. I would like to thank the South Bohemia University project and ERASMUS+ grant for funding my stay in France.

I attended and intensive English language course in London, GB in the first week of April (from 4th till 8th April 2022). I´m glad for this opportunity to improve my language skills and going abroad was a great opportunity.

From the 15 of September to 15 of December 2021, Ali Asghar Baloch completed the three-month internship program at the Department of Fish Diseases and Fish Farming, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Germany, "supported by Erasmus mobility internship program". The intern was acquainted with the laboratory's scientific focus and experimental background during the internship. The internship was focused mainly on strengthening the knowledge base and acquiring practical skills in fish diseases. Additionally, the intern took part in the ongoing research projects in the laboratory and learned some advanced molecular techniques. As part of the internship, the intern spent many hours with students and scientists, listening to them and discussing ongoing research and experiments. The intern expressed sincere gratitude to his supervisor, Dr Adamek Mikolaj, and colleagues who taught him new skills and helped him develop personally and professionally.

At last, I am very much thankful to the sending institute and truly appreciate their confidence shown in me by giving me this internship opportunity- the intern.

From 2. 11. to 29. 12. 2021, I visited the Department of Molecular Systems Biology in Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ, Germany. During my stay, I prepared my samples for metaproteomics analysis of gut microbiomes. Aside from learning laboratory work, I participated in a workshop on “Introduction to Amplicon Analyses”. Moreover, I had the opportunity to gain some experiences on MaxQuant software platform for protein identification and quantification. I would like to thank the PROFISH project (090032/0869 Profish/401/104040), which financially supported my stay.

From 5-9^th June 2022, we (Vlastimil Stejskal, Markéta Prokešová, Hung Quang Tran) attended a conference titled “XX International Symposium on Fish Nutrition and Feeding Towards Precision Fish Nutrition and Feeding” in Sorrento, Italy. The event involved research on the nutrient requirement, alternative aquafeed resources, functional feed additives, and feed quality for aquaculture species. Brought to this thematic research, we contributed three research outputs (two oral presentations by Hung Quang Tran and Markéta Prokešová, and one poster by Vlastimil Stejskal). Furthermore, two collaborating institutions (the Chiang Mai University from Thailand and the University of Padova from Italy) presented posters with results from our bilateral cooperation. The conference provided an excellent forum for exchanging experience and information, as well as increased the networks among researchers of the fish nutrition field. We would like to thank to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic, under the NAZV project QK1810296, for the financial support of this event.

I visited the University of Nebraska in Kearney from 13th to 19th November 2021. The aim of the trip was twinning focused on technology transfer in the conditions of the local university.

From 08.11.2021 to 08.01.2022, I completed my internship at the Institute of Animal Science, Department of Ichthyology and Biotechnology in Aquaculture, Warsaw University of Life Science, Poland, under the supervision of Dr. Małgorzata Rzepkowska. The training aimed to learn a new technique for in-situ hybridization (HCR-FISH) and immunohistochemistry (chromogen method) and analyze my samples. The internship was successful with great experience and good results. All expenditures of my business trip were supported by the individual GAJU (019/2021/Z 2021) project.

From 01st November to 22nd December 2021, I was training in the Laboratory of Gamete and Embryo Biology, Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research - Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn, Poland for an internship under supervision of Prof. Andrzej Ciereszko in the framework of Ph.D. study program. The aim of internship was to learn proteomics methods as well as doing sample analysis from our project. The internship was successful with obtained experiences as well as good result from samples basic analysis. The business trip was supported by the individual GAJU project.