prof. RNDr. Jan Vondráček, Ph.D.

Prof. Vondráček has received his MSc. degree in Biology in 1993 at the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University (MU) in Brno, Czech Republic. Following his PhD degree at the same university, focusing on the effects of ischemia on immune system (specialization: animal physiology and developmental biology), he joined the Institute of Biophysics of the CAS in Brno in 1997, where, with exception of short-term foreign fellowships, he has spent most of his research career. Since 2006, he has led the Cellular and Molecular Toxicology group, and in 2016 he was appointed a head of the Department of Cytokinetics at the Institute of Biophysics of the CAS. He was appointed associate professor at the MU in Brno in 2011, and then professor of animal physiology at the MU in 2017. Currently, he teaches 5 one-semester courses at MU and 2 one-semester courses at the Faculty of Science of Palacký University (MU) in Olomouc; apart from participating in a number of other university activities, he supervises (or supervised) 8 PhD students and a number of undergraduate students.

In his work, he focuses primarily on elucidation of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying toxic action of environmental pollutants, in particular in areas of carcinogenesis, endocrine disruption and metabolism, as well as in reprogramming of lipid metabolism in cancer cells. He acted as principal investigator or co-investigator on more than 15 projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation, CAS and Czech Ministry of Health, and he actively contributed to 4 international projects funded by 5th, 6th and 7th Framework Programs of EU and Horizon2020, focusing on important groups of persistent organic pollutants. He published more than 120 research papers and book chapters. His publications have been cited more than 4000 times (current h-index: 38).

He is a member of editorial boards of several international scientific journals, a number of scientific societies, and he actively contributes to the work of Federation of European Toxicologists & European Societies of Toxicology (EUROTOX). Since 2011 he has been working in evaluation panels of the Czech Science Foundation within committee for Agricultural and Biological-Environmental Sciences. Since 2012 he has been a member of the Board of the Institute of Biophysics the CAS. During the period of 2017-2021, he has been a member of the Science Council of the CAS, and during the period of 2021-2025, he has been a member of the Academy Council of the CAS.