National projects

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common form of visual impairment in the world, affecting more than 67 million people in the EU alone. Early stages are often asymptomatic and there is no cure or treatment to reverse the course of the disease. Supplementation with two natural xanthophylls, lutein and zeaxanthin, is currently the only effective measu...

Despite advances over the past years the treatment of breast cancer is still facing many challenges, among them overcoming cancer recurrence and avoiding therapy resistance are the main goals in the aim to improve patients’ status. Failure   in antitumor therapy has been, among the phenotypically and functionally heterogenous population of cells with...

The mechanisms and pathogenesis of many neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD) and Parkinson disease are not completely understood. However, it is hypothesized that clearance of amyloid beta (Ab) aggregates in AD-patient can result in cognitive improvement and reverse the progression of disease. The Ab aggregates should be disrupted into insoluble...

The project addresses establishment of electrospinning needle-free technology of biocompatible bimodal polyamide 6 that will be used for manufacturing containers for Solid State Drug Delivery approach. This approach utilizes polymeric electrospun nanofibrous materials as a shell material for drug carrier containers for targeted chemotherapy of localized tumors and p...

In nature, the extracellular matrix, which encloses bacterial cells, has a vital role for normal cell functioning. Such confinement serves as protection against predators and antimicrobial agents, allows the establishment of high cell densities and co-aggregation of different types of cells and provides a matrix, where different bioactive molecules can concentrate. ...

Scientific background and problem introduction Urinary bladder cancer is 6th among all cancers worldwide and 1/3 of urinary bladder cancer emerges as multifocal tumours at different sites of the urothelium, e.g. epithelium which represents effective blood-urine barrier. Treatment usually includes the resection of the tumours during the transurethral resection of the...

It is well known that the microbial biofilms pose a significant risk for human health and economy. The increased resistance of microbes in biofilms against antimicrobial agents presents a major challenge for microbial biotechnology. The current research identifies the extracellular matrix that can vary in its exopolymeric (EPS) composition significantly even in the ...

Alzheimer disease is becoming one of the leading problems of modern medicine, affecting patients, their families and draining national health care budgets worldwide. According to predictions, in the near future, Alzheimer disease shall be inevitable for more than one third of the population aged over 65 years. Development of a reliable diagnostic tool for early diag...

Losses in crop production due to plant diseases average 20 % worldwide and severely limit production, quality, and safety of food. The main culprits, besides viruses, are fungi, bacteria and oomycetes. Practice of crop protection has been progressively reoriented towards reduction of a number of active ingredients in pesticides to those that are more selective and l...

Goal of the project is to investigate possibility of bacteriophage therapy in periprosthetic joint infections (PJI) treatment. The number of joint implants is increasing every year, as they nearly eliminate pain and contribute significantly to better mobility of the patients affected with end stage joint derangements. Along with increasing number of patients with jo...