Team members

Principal investigator

Assoc. Prof. Petr Pečinka, Ph.D.

Petr Pečinka is head of The Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Ostrava. He has been interested in the study of the protein-DNA/RNA interactions since 2006 where it was established. Results obtained in the collaboration with the Laboratory of Biophysical Chemistry and Molecular Oncology at the Institute of Biophysics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic were recently published in various outstanding journals. He has broad experience with local DNA/RNA structures, protein-DNA/RNA interactions (EMSA, footprinting experiments), and the preparation of recombinant DNA.

Researchers

Martin Bartas, Ph.D.

Martin Bartas’s primary research focus is on noncanonical structures of nucleic acids and their interactions with proteins. Martin Bartas successfully finished his Ph.D. study this year and was awarded the University of Ostrava Rector´s Award (2019) and The Academia Award for the best Diploma Thesis (2018).

Jiří Červeň, Ph.D.

Jiří Červeň’s primary research focus is on noncanonical structures of nucleic acids and their interactions with proteins. He has wide experience with fluorescence microscopy, DNA/RNA isolation and purification, and qPCR.

Kristyna Slychko, Ph.D. student

Kristyna Slychko is a Ph.D. student interested in topoisomerase and Z-DNA research and bioinformatics. She has an experience with recombinant protein expression/purification, and DNA cloning.

Kristýna Kundrátová, Ph.D. student

Kristýna Kundrátová is interested in molecular biology and the breeding of Papaver somniferum. The theme of her dissertation is "Evaluation of gene expression associated with abiotic drought stress and accumulation of corresponding proteins". She has an experience with DNA/RNA isolation and purification, NGS-sequencing, and western-blotting.

Adriana Volná, Ph.D. (visiting member)

Adriana Volná’s research is focused on gene expression in Spring barley (Hordeum vulgare) in the context of spectral quality and irradiation in incident light, nonetheless, she is intensively working also in the field of molecular virology and novel SARS-CoV-2 research.

Tereza Stachurová, Ph.D. (visiting member)

Tereza Stachurová is interested mainly in microbiology and the genetic diversity of bacteria living in wastewater treatment plants. Actually, she has contributed to SARS-CoV-2 research focused on putative human proteins interacting with viral RNA.