As a commission member I participated the evaluation of universities and research institutions in agriculture for the Research Council of Lithuania from 1st May to 5th May 2023. The evaluation will directly affect the institutional funding for the next five years.
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Pavel Kozák, Ph.D., The FFPWS USB Dean
We participated in the english course organized by the IELS Malta (Institute of English Language Studies) educational organization in Malta as part of the ERASMUS+ program from 27. 8. to 2. 9. 2023. It was an intensive general english course.
Adéla Minaříková, Michaela Vazačová
Thanks to the Erasmus+ program from 25. 04. to 29. 04. 2022 I visited Prof. Everaldo Attard group at the University of Malta, Malta. My main concern was to improve the international relations between this organization and University of South Bohemia. Additionally, I presented several lectures and had a training course of Fish Handling Techniques for marine fish species. My attendance was very productive. I got many new contacts that will could have a positive impact on our future collaboration.
On 20 - 24.11. 2023 we participated in the 41st International Conference on Environmental & Food Monitoring (ISEAC-41), Amsterdam, Netherlands. Here, we presented contributions on topics related to our research and the results achieved within the EXPRO project regarding untargeted LC-MS analysis – „Two-stage LC/HRMS workflow for identification of effect drivers in passive sampler extracts after their selective recovery by pull-down assay“ (Roman Grabic) and „Two-dimensional fractionation procedure followed by HPLC-HRMS as a tool for the identification of compounds from treated wastewater interacting with Aryl hydrocarbon receptor“ (Andrea Vojs Staňová).
Under Erasmus+ mobility funding program, I took a ten-day visit to Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences (IHA), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), from 23rd April 2023 to 4th May 2023, to advance my knowledge about nutrition and feeding procedures for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). I also had one presentation on the topic of insect as feed.
On November 23-24, 2023, I (Petr Císař) took part in a coordination meeting for the preparation of the INFRADEV project in Paris. The aim of the project is to obtain funding for the creation of an ESFRI application focused on research in the field of livestock breeding. FROV's involvement is in the field of fish breeding, modern technologies for their monitoring, agroecology and data management. The project is coordinated by INRAE and there are 7 partners in the consortium.
On 6-11 November 2023 I participated in the Green Deal Biotechnology international conference in Poznan, Poland, where I participated as a key note speaker with a lecture on Surrogate Reproduction.
From September 7th to 10th, 2023, I attended the 3rd Meeting of Visegrad Group Society for Developmental Biology held in Warsaw. The results of my work were presented by my supervisor prof. Marianne E Bronner as a part of her invited lecture and I also presented results of my research on the neural crest of sturgeon through a poster presentation.
On 16.-20. On May 2022, I undertook a business trip to Portugal under the Erasmus + program. The goal of the trip was exchange of experience in field of R+D, services and research, comparing with system in the Czech Republic Cooperation with the companies, networking and meeting colleagues from similar agencies and departments.
On 17-18 January 2023, Dr. Borek Drozd, Prof. Tomáš Randák, Dr. Jan Kubec and Ing. M. Šindler attended the kick-off meeting of the newly acquired integrated project LIFE21-IPE-SK-LIFE Living Rivers/101069837. The meeting was held at the Research Institute of Water Management, Bratislava (Slovakia) as the project coordinator. The involvement of particular institutions in the project and individual work packages, the division into work groups and the communication within the large project consortium were addressed. On 19 January 2023, the planned passage of the Čunovo weir and activities related to the monitoring of ichthyocenoses prior to the design and implementation of this activity were discussed within the project consortium by Dr. Drozd and Ing. Šindler along with invited ichthyologists from other organizations from Slovakia.
On March 1, 2022, I travelled by train to Germany, Rostock University, where I spent a month working with Prof. Martin Hagemann (Head of the Department of Plant Physiology), his team and my PhD student Anushree Bachhar, who is doing her internship there. The trip and all other expenses were covered by the SCyCode project, where I am participating as a foreign expert (Mercator Fellow) on modelling and isoenzymes within the German consortium. The aim of my first month was to design new experiments, analyze existing and unpublished data and extend the model to include the TCA cycle. One of the outcomes of my stay will be a paper on the possibilities of statistical evaluation of LC-MS data leading to the discovery of new biological phenomena. I ended my stay on 31st March 2022, when I returned to the Czech Republic by train.
I participated in international conference SETAC Europe 2023 from 30st April to 4th May 2023, which was held in Ireland. Environmental toxicology, ecotoxicology, environmental policy and risk assessment associated with the occurrence of pollutants and their mixtures in the environment were the main discussed topics. At this conference, I presented the results of our experiment aimed to assess the effect of mifepristone, a model compound with anti-progestogenic activity, on the development of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) in the form of a poster. The travel was carried out as a part of the Czech Science Foundation project No. 22-19136S.
Abstract book can be downloaded here.
On 7th February 2023, Dr. Borek Drozd, Prof. Tomáš Randák and Ing. M. Šindler, together with other partners of the project LIFE21-IPE-SK-LIFE Living Rivers/101069837, attended a coordination meeting with the representatives of the Council of the Slovak Angling Union (Žilina). During the meeting, the details of the cooperation between the project consortium of the LIFE Living Rivers project and the key user of the project results, stakeholder and at the same time the user of the fishing grounds involved into the target project area were agreed.
On 8th February 2023, Dr. Drozd and Ing. Šindler solved within the project consortium by along with invited ichthyologists from other organizations from Slovakia at the Research Institute of Water Management, Bratislava (Slovakia) the planned passage of the Čunovo weir, where it is necessary to harmonize the interests of the LIFE Living Rivers project and the interests of Water Management Construction State Enterprise.
RNDr. Bořek Drozd, Ph.D.
In the period from October 30 to November 3, I visited prof. Luz Perez, prof. Juan Asturiano and their Group of Aquaculture and Biodiversity, from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), Spain. During my stay, I gave lectures for master's students regarding fish spermatozoa, mostly focused on freshwater species. The study program of UPV is focused on marine fishes, so talks highlight mechanisms of spermatozoa motility in freshwater species supplemented course. Also, we discussed some of our previous results with prof. Luz Perez and possibilities for future collaborations. The travel was financially supported by the Erasmus+ program.
Borys Dzyuba attended the meeting of the Society for Low Temperature Biology, held in Vigo, Spain, from September 19 to 26, 2023. The poster titled "Cryopreservation-induced alterations in fatty acid composition of highly motile sperm fraction in sterlet Acipenser ruthenus" was presented. The visit was undertaken as part of the activities within the GACR project (22-14069S). In addition to participating in the conference, plans for future collaboration were discussed with Dr. Estefania Paredes Rosendo from the ECOCOST Group at the University of Vigo (see photo of Estefania Paredes and Borys Dzyuba). The friendly meeting with top-level world cryobiologists is highly appreciated.
On days 15-24 February 2023 I went on a business trip to the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala, as part of the Erasmus+ program. The goal of the trip was the analysis of genomic data of fish performance traits, the incorporation of modern breeding methods into the conditions of Czech aquaculture and the establishment of closer cooperation with SLU.
I undertook a 3-month research internship at Zurich University of Applied Science between the 2nd of April and 30th of June, 2022. During this time, i was exposed to the planning, builiding and operation of different systems, including, recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS), hydroponics and decoupled aquacponics systems.
While I partook in the day-to-day operations of the instute’s aquaculture systems, I was also exposed to data sampling and analytical methods such as GC-MS and ICP-OES throughout the entire duration of the internship.
My utmost gratitude goes to the FFPW USB for financing this internship and making it a topnotch.
I participated in the international conference ASIATOX X 2023 from 17st July to 20th July 2023, which was held in Taiwan. The main topic of this conference was the Sustainable Development Goals, (SDGs) in toxicology. At this conference, I gave an oral presentation on the assessment of the effects of compounds with anti-progestogenic activity on aquatic vertebrates (amphibians and fish). The travel was performed in the frame of GAJU project No. 055/2023/Z and GAJU project No. 065/2022/Z.
Abstract book can be downloaded here.
On November 20-24, 2023, Jan Kouřil participated in the FAO Regional Workshop for Hands-on Training on Pond Aquaculture of Main Species. The workshop was held in Antalya, Turkey. Here I presented a lecture on pond aquaculture in the Czech Republic.
The internship was set for three months at West Liberty University, Department of Biology, USA, under the supervision of Dr. Zackary Graham. The language of the traineeship was English. The internship was focused on gaining experience in phylogenetic comparative methods, collecting morphological data on crayfishes, and working with specimens from museum collections.
I have collected morphological data from over 80 different species of crayfishes over 900 specimens. I have collected this data in person from
1