Director’s Introduction – 2025

as usual, at this time of year, I would like to briefly summarize the events of the past year at our Institute and what lies ahead of us in 2025. In 2024, the main task of the Institute management, as in previous years, was to ensure the professional work environment and conditions for research within the confines of a public research organization, to secure funding for our activities, and to help ensure that the funding the Institute has received and continues to receive is translated into significant new knowledge in our research areas, in accordance with all relevant regulations. These tasks have been addressed at the level of the Institute Management Board, the Council of IMG and the Supervisory Board of IMG.

In 2024, as in 2023, our activities were affected by the energy crisis, which translated into a significant increase in gas and electricity prices and a consequent increase in operating costs, which were only partially compensated by the founder. Due to the negative impact of the increase in energy prices, we had to continue with several cost-saving measures that we had adopted, which included lowering the heating temperature, banning the use of convector heaters, shortening the HVAC system operation, and other changes. Inflation also had a negative impact and continues to have an impact on the increased costs of running the Institute as a whole.

In the past year, the junior group Laboratory of Mechanisms of Gamete Development was closed down, and a selection procedure was completed, resulting in the establishment of two new groups, one of which started its research activities at the beginning of 2025 (Laboratory of Cilia Genetics and Pathology) and the other will start its operations during 2025 (Laboratory of Immunophysiology). The Institute enters 2025 with 25 research and 2 service-research groups (22 in Krč and 5 in Vestec within the BIOCEV project), three large national infrastructures hosted at the Institute, two of which are located in Krč (Czech-BioImaging and CZ-OPENSCREEN) and one in Vestec (Czech Centre for Phenogenomics), and one of the nodes of the pan-European bioinformatics structure ELIXIR. Our core facilities, including the Proteomics Laboratory, a joint facility of the Institute of Physiology and IMG, which is entering its 6th year of operation, have been of great importance for ensuring the work of the research groups.

As of 31 December 2024, our Institute had a total of 552 employees (476 in full-time equivalent), with 260 working in research groups, 33 in service research groups, 32 in research services, 172 in large research infrastructures, and 55 in administrative and technical services, including the Office of the Director.

The results of our research were published in more than 130 publications in major international journals in 2024. If I were to list the four most important results of the Institute from my point of view, I would choose the publications of Anna Markos et al. from the Laboratory of Transcriptional Regulation led by Zbynek Kozmik and published in Nature Communications, Matej Horvath et al. from the Laboratory of Structural Neurobiology led by Daniel Rozbesky and published in Nature Communications, Matous Palk et al. from the Laboratory of Cancer Cell Biology led by Libor Macůrk and published in Nucleic Acids Research, and the publication of Kryštof Štafl et al. from the Laboratory of Viral and Cellular Genetics led by Jiří Hejnar and published in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci U.S.A.

The activities of the research groups produce new application results and contracts, which in many cases reflect cooperation with the business sphere and bring considerable financial resources to the budget of our Institute (more than 40 million CZK in the past year). To support these activities, the Institute continued to operate the Centre for Technology Transfer. Increased activities in this direction are expected from our involvement in the biotechnology cluster Prague bio, z. s., of which the Institute is one of the founding members.

In 2024, as in the previous year, we have received the majority (~60%) of the funds to secure the operating costs of our research tasks in the form of specific funding from grant agencies and other providers in the amount of CZK 532 million, and CZK 367 million from the founder. Therefore, it is not surprising that in 2024, we were dealing with 103 grant projects from various providers, including the Czech Science Foundation (33 projects), the Ministry of Education (15), the EU (9), the Ministry of Health (15), the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (5) and others. On average, each research group is in charge of more than three research projects with a significant administrative burden. Cooperation in the preparation of grants, monitoring of their progress and information about grant opportunities is provided by the grants group, which was established in 2022 within the Economy Department.

Significant attention was paid to the support and provision of the PhD programme, the PhD conference and the 48th annual course Advances in Molecular Biology and Genetics. In addition, many other conferences, seminars and courses were held, involving members of several research and service groups of the Institute.

The administrative and technical services, which include the Administration Team, the Economy Department, the Building Management, and the Information Technology Department, are essential to ensure the research work of the entire Institute. In 2024, as in previous years, these departments were dealing at a high level with a wide range of demanding tasks, from the economic management of the Institute, including grant projects, to the renovation and repair of buildings, provision of external audits and maintenance of the Institute computer network. Essential service units for most of the research groups are the animal facilities located in Krč, the BIOCEV Centre and Koleč. A number of other activities of the Institute are presented on our website and in the minutes of the IMG Council, which are available on the Institute intranet.

In the past year, we continued the tradition dating from the time of the COVID-19 pandemic and split the all-Institute meeting into two dates. On 8 January, a meeting was held to celebrate the start of the New Year, focusing mainly on administrative and service units, and on 23 and 24 May, a two-day IMG conference was held where the heads of research groups presented and discussed their research projects. This conference was followed by an all-Institute assembly, focused on science and associated with the award of the best research papers of the previous year, and an all-Institute party. Also important was a meeting of the heads of research and administrative units on 16 October 2024. The Institute hosted several other events, including opening of selected Institute laboratories to the public as part of the Open Doors Day, laboratory tours for children of our staff, Scientists’ Night and lectures for non-scientists. Not negligible were also joint community service activities such as the maintenance of the playground.

The year 2025 builds smoothly on the work of previous years and will be marked by the improvement of our Institute in several ways. Construction of a new laboratory for work with infectious viruses and bacteria at the BSL3 safety level in Krč will continue. We will also improve and expand our data repositories and continue to use electronic laboratory notebooks and other data management facilities. Renovation will be made to make more efficient use of energy resources, and building of a 60 m³ rainwater retention tank at Krč is still in plan. Increasing the quality of technology transfer, institutional services, cyber security (NIS2) and computer networking will be addressed. The aim of these and many other activities is to improve the working conditions of the research departments and the work of staff in general. Finally, I would like to thank all the employees of our Institute in research, administrative and service units for the work done so far, and I look forward to further cooperation in improving our Institute at all levels, achieving scientific excellence, and promoting science.

23 January 2025
Petr Dráber