The Doctorandus Prize for Natural Sciences, presented by the company ‘Veolia’, is awarded for ‘an innovative approach and the most outstanding achievement, professional or scientific activity of a Doctoral student, especially in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and medicine’. Martin Toul from the Masaryk University’s Loschmidt laboratories clarified the action of the rohoro protein, making it possible to increase the effectiveness of the staphylokinase protein by up to ten times during treatment.
The winner of the Česká hlava Award was selected from dozens of nominations by an expert jury consisting of leading Czech scientists. The award is the highest award for Czech scientists, with past awardees including Antonín Holý, Josef Koutecký, Václav Hořejší, Pavel Hobza, Blanka Říhová and other famous scientific personalities.
About Martin Toul
Martin Toul is a graduate of Masaryk University, where he worked as a researcher in the Protein Engineering Team of Loschmidt Laboratories, RECETOX, Faculty of Science, MUNI, under the supervision of Prof Zbyněk Prokop and Prof Jiří Damborský. Martin Marek and Martin Marek from the Loschmidt Laboratories, RECETOX, Faculty of Science, MUNI have described an innovative and sustainable way to produce light. They have clarified the mysterious illumination mechanism of the sea cnidarians' luciferase, Renilla reinformis.
Dr. Martin Toul is the recipient of two MU Rector's Awards for outstanding students of both Master's and PhD programmes and Brno PhD Talent Awards (2018/2019) laureate. In 2020, he was awarded a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship for PhD students, thanks to which he spent a semester at the University of Texas at Austin in the group of Prof Kenneth A. Johnson. He succesfuly graduated from the MUNI Mendel Doctorandus programme and defended his dissertation in the European Doctorate mode. After obtaining his PhD moved to his new location at the VIB research institute in Ghent, Belgium. This year, he was awarded the Prize of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports for his work.
