On March 2, 2022, Ambassador of the State of Israel to the Czech Republic H.E. Anna Azari visited the Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS (IOCB Prague). Collaboration between the institute and Israeli scientists has developed successfully in recent years, and the ambassador was provided an overview of some of the ongoing joint drug discovery projects.
The director of IOCB Prague Zdeněk Hostomský introduced the ambassador to the institute, its specializations, and its discoveries leading to the successful development of many drugs. He considers Israel’s approach to transferring research results into practice a source of inspiration for the Czech scientific milieu.
“Israel has demonstrated beyond any doubt that even small countries lacking mineral wealth can achieve remarkable success through invention and the right approach to transferring scientific results into practice,” says Zdeněk Hostomský. “Thanks to a conducive legal framework and active support, cutting-edge science is able to rapidly transform into amazing new technologies that benefit all areas of human life. For Czech science and its administration, the approach taken by Israel is very inspiring.”
The ambassador and representatives of the institute discussed differences in the area of science in both countries and ways to facilitate collaboration and student exchanges.
“The pandemic has shown us that investing in science and research is essential to mitigate its impact across countries. Therefore, I am pleased that the Czech-Israeli cooperation is developing mainly in the field of medicine and biology. The IOCB, together with the Weizmann Institute of Sciences, significantly contributed to this,” says Anna Azari in speaking about the work being carried out by Czech and Israeli researchers.
“It is great that thanks to their cooperation, young scientists from the Czech Republic and Israel will have the opportunity to meet in person this year as part of the Prague Summer School, and I look forward to other projects that will follow,” she adds.
During the meeting, research group leaders Jan Konvalinka, Pavel Jungwirth, and Radim Nencka spoke about concrete research projects focusing on substances with potential for diagnostics and cancer therapy or cellular drug transport. The projects synergistically combine the chemical and computational expertise of researchers at IOCB Prague with the biological expertise of researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
Results are also being produced in a promising collaboration devoted to technology transfer administered by the institute’s subsidiary IOCB TECH.
“We’re very pleased that the scientific collaboration with Israeli institutions is developing successfully. In the area of technology transfer, our work on several drug discovery projects with the Weizmann Institute of Science has been particularly productive, and together with them and the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague, we also organize a summer school focusing on advances in drug discovery,” says Martin Fusek, deputy director of IOCB Prague and director of its subsidiary IOCB TECH.
Moreover, the company is preparing a new project to support student research fellowships in Israel. “In collaboration with the Neuron Endowment Fund, we are now developing support for student research fellowships at Israeli universities. I greatly value the help provided to us in our activities by the Embassy of Israel and Ambassador Anna Azari,” he adds.
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