On Wednesday, November 27, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports building (Karmelitská 8, Prague 1), Minister of Education Marcel Chládek presented the 2014 Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Award. This award is presented annually for outstanding achievements in research, experimental development, and innovation achieved with the support of public funding. Alongside the Milada Paulová Award and the František Běhounek Award, it is one of the highest state awards for workers in science and research in the Czech Republic. This year’s award went to Prof. Ing. Jiří Homola, CSc., DSc. from the Institute of Photonics and Electronics of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Homola is engaged in research into optical biosensors and is one of the world’s leading experts in this field. His broad multidisciplinary approach and ability to tackle complex research topics such as optical biosensors in their entirety across traditional scientific disciplines make the research program led by Prof. Homola internationally unique. Prof. Homola has published more than 130 scientific papers, which represent a significant contribution to the development of the field and are highly regarded in the scientific community. For example, Web of Science has registered more than 9,000 citations to these papers. Prof. Homola is regularly invited to speak at scientific congresses and conferences – in the last ten years alone, he has given more than 50 invited lectures at international conferences around the world. Prof. Homola’s original results are protected by seven patents, and the biosensors developed by his team are now used by universities and research institutions not only in the Czech Republic, but also in the United States, Europe, and Asia. For his contribution to the development of the field of optical biosensors, Prof. Homola has received a number of awards, including the Premium Academiae award from the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Česká hlava award in the Invention category, and the international Roche Prize for Sensor Technology. Prof. Homola was also one of the first Czech scientists to be named a Fellow Member of the International Society for Optical Engineering.
The significant results achieved by Prof. Homola and his team, which were recognized today with the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports Award for outstanding achievements in research, experimental development, and innovation, are contained in 10 papers published in leading scientific journals. These publications present new types of biosensors based on optical structures with nanoscopic motifs, on which special electromagnetic waves are excited, so-called surface plasmons, or new approaches in sensor instrumentation and detection methodology, as well as applications of biosensors with surface plasmons for research into biomolecules and their interactions or the rapid and sensitive detection of chemical and biological substances.
For example, the team led by Prof. Homola has developed biosensors capable of detecting bisphenol A contamination in water, a chemical compound that disrupts the activity of endocrine glands, and of determining the levels of carcinoembryonic antigen – a biomarker of gastrointestinal cancer – in the blood plasma of patients. These results are expected to find application in important areas of society, such as medical diagnostics, food quality control, and environmental pollution monitoring.
