Research Team

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  Viktor Krchňák

  Biographical Information

  Viktor Krchňák studied chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Masaryk University in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He earned his PhD in organic chemistry from the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, under the supervision of Prof. Zdenek Arnold. After holding several industrial positions with small biotech companies in the US, he joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as a research professor in May 2003. He is currently holding a joint position at the Palacky University, Olomouc.

  Research Interests

  His research interest covers solid-phase chemistry in general and combinatorial chemistry in particular. His group developed new concept for the solid-phase synthesis of traceless heterocyclic libraries, general methodology for solid-phase synthesis of N-derivatized hydroxamates, the "split-split" method for the synthesis of sizable combinatorial libraries (up to 60,000 compounds), novel coding technique for the synthesis on modular solid support (necklace coding, Encore technique), instrumentation and logistics for high throughput organic synthesis. Numerous his inventions resulted in commercially available personal chemistry tools (www.torviq.com).

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  Jan Hlaváč

  Biographical Information

  Jan Hlaváč studied analytical chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Palacky University in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, where he earned his M.Sc. degree. Ph.D. degree was earned in organic chemistry at the same institution under supervision of prof. Jan Slouka. After short term stage abroad he continued in his career at Palacky University. Currently he is working as head of department of organic chemistry Faculty of Natural Sciences PU.

  Research Interests

  His research interest is focused on synthesis of organic compounds, especially nitrogenous heterocycles and study of their physico-chemical as well as biological properties. His group is focused on preparation and study of nucleic acid components and development of molecular probes. In the field of biologically active compounds the attention is paid particularly to anticancer activity, where compounds with significant in-vitro activity against drug resistant cancer cell lines were developed. He applies principles of combinatorial chemistry for studies of relationship of structure and compound properties.

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  Miroslav Soural

  Biographical Information

  Miroslav Soural studied organic chemistry at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, where he earned his M.Sc. degree. After then he earned his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry at the same institution under supervision of prof. Jan Hlavac. After finishing Ph.D. he held one year a postdoc position at University of Notre Dame in a research group of Prof. Viktor Krchnak. Currently he is working as an assistant professor of organic chemistry at Faculty of Natural Sciences of Palacky University. From 2002 he has been also holding joint position at Department of Forensic Medicine at Faculty Hospital in Olomouc as an external toxicologist.

  Research Interests

  His main research interest is synthesis of nitrogenous heterocycles and study of their biological properties with particular focuse on in vitro cytotoxicity against various drug resistant cancer cell lines. Research and development of novel biologically active substances is performed with use of solution-phase as well as solid-phase synthesis and recently also with application of combinatorial chemistry.

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  Naděžda Cankařová

  Biographical Information

  Naděžda Cankařová studied chemistry and biology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, where she earned her M.Sc. degree. After that she started her Ph.D. study in organic chemistry at the same institution under supervision of prof. Jan Hlaváč. During her Ph.D. study she worked over one year as a researcher at the University of Notre Dame, USA, in a research group of Prof. Viktor Krchňák . Since November 2010 she has been working part time as a researcher at the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the Palacky University.

  Research Interests

  Her research interest is focused on solid-phase synthesis of various nitrogenous heterocycles. She utilizes combinatorial chemistry principles for preparation of small chemical libraries. A novel nitrogenous heterocyclic compounds with significant in vitro anticancer activity have been discovered.