Plenary speakers

Paul Nurse is a geneticist and cell biologist who works on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled. His major work has been on the cyclin dependent protein kinases and how they regulate cell reproduction. He is Director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, Chancellor of the University of Bristol, and has served as President of the Royal Society, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK and President of Rockefeller University. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and has received the Albert Lasker Award, the Gairdner Award, the Louis Jeantet Prize and the Royal Society’s Royal and Copley Medals. He was knighted in 1999 made a Companion of Honour and awarded the Order of Merit in 2022 for services to science and medicine in the UK and abroad, received the Legion d’honneur in 2003 from France, and the Order of the Rising Sun in 2018 from Japan. He served for 15 years on the UK Council of Science and Technology, advising the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and was a Chief Scientific Advisor for the European Union.  In 2020 he wrote “What is Life” which has been published in 22 countries.

Paul flies gliders and vintage aeroplanes and has been a qualified bush pilot. He also likes the theatre, hill-walking, going to museums and art galleries, and running very slowly.

Jan Konvalinka studied biochemistry at the Faculty of Science of Charles University. From 1987 to 1991, he undertook his postgraduate studies at IOCB Prague, where her would return in 1997 after completing research internships in London at Birkbeck College, at Cardiff University, and in Heidelberg and Hamburg. He heads the Proteases of Human Pathogens research group as Distinguished Chair.

From 2014 to 2022, he served as Vice-Rector for Science and Research at Charles University. He is a member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic and other scientific organizations, and he is also the Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Neuron Endowment Fund.

Katarína Mikušová is a biochemist who investigates biosynthesis of the cell wall of a major human pathogen, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Her journey with mycobacteria started in 1992, when she joined Professor Patrick J. Brennan at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, United States. After returning to Slovakia in 1995, she began to develop this topic at the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, Comenius University in Bratislava, which she has been heading since 2012. Her major contributions towards understanding critical metabolic pathways in mycobacteria include: (i) identification of key steps of mycobacterial cell wall biosynthesis, including functional characterization of distinctive bifunctional galactosyltrasferases GlfT1 and GlfT2, (ii) discovery of a unique monosaccharide epimerization reaction taking place on a lipid carrier, which makes an activated sugar donor for synthesis of indispensable arabinan polymers in mycobacterial cell wall and thorough characterization the DprE1/DprE2 epimerase – an enzyme catalysing this reaction; (iii) characterization of an essential machinery for the transport of the cell wall galactan polymer across the mycobacterial plasma membrane. The knowledge and techniques developed in her laboratory were successfully applied to reveal the mechanism of action of several effective antimycobacterial inhibitors, including two benzothiazinone derivatives, which are currently tested in clinical trials.

Katarína likes swimming, skiing and reading books. She enjoys good food and wine, and gets energized by her two granddaughters and by walking her dog.

Artur Osyczka is a head of the Department of Molecular Biophysics at the Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Biotechnology, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Received PhD from Tokyo Metropolitan University (1999). Post-doc at University of Pennsylvania (1999 – 2006). Senior Research Fellow of the Wellcome Trust (2006 – 2016). His research aims at understanding molecular mechanisms of operation of energy conserving systems from the physicochemical point of view and also in relation to cellular physiology. He focuses on enzymatic catalysis/regulation and electron and proton transfers and on dynamics of protein-protein interactions in redox systems. The enzymes of his particular interest are quinol oxidoreductases of respiratory and photosynthetic electron transport chains (cytochromes bc1, b6f, alternative complex III). Prof. Osyczka and his colleagues described several mechanistic elements of their action. The most important findings and discussed concepts include: recognition of the mechanistic problem with understanding how cytochromes bc1 avoid energy-wasting short circuits (Nature, 2004), demonstration of intermonomer electron transfer (Science, 2010) and proposal of the molecular mechanism of ROS generation by this complex (BBA-Bioenergetics, 2010; Chem. Rev., 2021), discovery of specific and non-reactive with oxygen state associated with operation of the catalytic site of cytochromes bc1 and b6f (PNAS, 2017), description of the channel for quinone traffic in cytochrome b6f (Sci. Adv., 2024) and proposal of the quinone-water exchange mechanism for efficient catalytic turnover (Nature plants, 2024). The experimental approach combines molecular and structural biology, biochemical and biophysical methods with emphasis on time-resolved optical and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy.