Excursions for English-speaking school classes (Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences)

As part of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences at IOCB, we offer excursions to our labs for English-speaking school classes.

School groups are welcome to come visit our laboratories on Friday, 10 November 2023 from 9 am to 12 pm.

If you are interested in a program for Czech-speaking schools, please go here.

Other events of the Week of the Czech Academy of Sciences at IOCB Prague can be found here.

Excursions are intended for students from the 8^th grade of elementary school and the 3^rd grade of 8-year high schools.

For safety and practical reasons, a maximum of 12 students with a teacher (13 persons in total) may participate in each presentation. If you are planning to come with a larger group of students, please divide them into several smaller groups and book a separate program for each group; the groups can then swap programs to ensure everyone sees the same presentations.

• You can book the program for your class here.

Our analytical laboratory works as a detective agency. Our colleagues synthesize new substances or isolate them from biological material and need to confirm their chemical composition. By burning the sample, we can determine the content of C, H and N. Fluorine can be determined using an ion-selective electrode. Using X-ray, we can identify most of the elements of the periodic table, and their trace amounts can be detected in the inductively coupled plasma (we put some of them in a furnace, first). Come to see the 10,000 K argon plasma and find out whether your ring is truly made of gold!

Fluorescence is the ability of molecules to emit colored light. The phenomenon often accompanies scientists in their first steps on the path to developing new drugs, most often those targeting enzymes, i.e. molecular machines that catalyze chemical reactions in living organisms. In our laboratory, you can see with your own eyes how we use fluorescence to purify enzymes and test potential drugs.

This demonstration provides an in-depth look into the evolution of microscopy, tracing its roots back to the pioneering work of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, renowned for his simple yet groundbreaking single-lensed microscope. We will journey through the development of the compact, paper-based Foldscope, an accessible tool for modern microscopy enthusiasts. Additionally, the display will include an array of microscopes from Zeiss, spanning nearly a century (1930-2022), allowing attendees to explore the advancements in optical technology and the various microscopy modalities. Join us in marveling at the transformation of this indispensable scientific tool and understanding the vast potentialities in peering into the microscopic world!

What does the everyday life of an organic chemist look like? What do the scientists need, and what must be taken care of to prevent an accident? Let’s visit the place where the new compounds for medical treatment are produced. The students will get to know the basic procedure used in the synthesis of organic compounds.

Neurosteroids are synthetic derivatives of naturally occurring steroids that play important role in physiology and disease. We’ll explain the difference between steroids that act as hormones (estradiol, testosterone) and neurosteroids that can be used as drugs for treatment of various diseases of the central nervous system. We’ll also talk about neurosteroid allopregnanolone, the first-in-class drug approved in 2019 for treatment of postpartum depression and other novel neurosteroids currently being tested in various human clinical trials.

When we say, "magnetic resonance", we may think of the equipment that doctors use to image the human body to detect a variety of diseases. Nevertheless, the same method has also been used with success by chemists to reveal the structure of an unknown substance, i.e. how individual atoms are linked by bonds and what their spatial arrangement is. In the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) laboratory, we will explain how the magnetic properties of nuclei and electrons can be used to investigate the structure of substances. We will show you the equipment used in such measurements - a powerful superconducting magnet whose magnetic field is a hundred thousand times greater than the Earth's magnetic field. We will explain how molecules communicate with us using their magnetic field and what they are willing to tell us about their structure.

The recent SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic highlighted the unpreparedness of countries to face new viral diseases. Several biochemistry and virology laboratories have begun to communicate more with each other to find ways to counter this pandemic. A unique project has been created - the National Institute of Virology and Bacteriology, which brings together research institutes from all over the country. We would like to introduce you to this project and briefly present the known and unknown viruses. We will explain various forms of therapy for viral infections, and there will certainly be time for interesting questions.

How do cells use basic mechanisms to fight infectious diseases? RNA molecules play many important roles in cells, one of the best known of which is the transfer of genetic information from DNA to the part of the cell where protein synthesis occurs. The molecules function like an imaginary recipe in a huge DNA cookbook, and it’s likely that RNA played a key role in the origin of life on Earth. Moreover, these natural molecules can easily be prepared under laboratory conditions. The fact that RNA is intrinsic to the body and that a suitable recipe for synthetizing any protein can be written into it offers great hope for the development of gentle and effective next-generation vaccines. Come and learn more about these exciting molecules!

When we say DNA, most of us probably imagine a nice double-helix and think about genes. But DNA also has other less traditional functions, and those are what our lab focuses on. In fact, we consider them so interesting that we want to make them famous. During our session, we’ll show you how we find short specific DNA sequences capable of triggering chemical reactions. Moreover, you’ll get to prepare some of the reactions with your own two hands and observe their progression using several of the techniques that we routinely apply in our research.