Jaroslav Doležel, a plant geneticist, commenced the 14th year of the Contemporary Chemistry lecture series with a talk on plant genetic information and its decoding. Contemporary Chemistry is regularly organised at the UP Faculty of Science under the aegis of Prof Pavel Hobza, the highly cited, world-renowned researcher and 2008 Czech Mind recipient. The goal for this year is to promote science and its leading representatives in Olomouc.
“In previous years, I would invite scientists from all over the Czech Republic and abroad to tackle issues related to their fields. However, I realised the importance of promoting science in Olomouc, highlighting its outstanding qualities. There are three research centres at the university, which have made incredible progress since they were established. It only makes sense that three out of the four guest speakers are based at these centres,” said Pavel Hobza.
Jaroslav Doležel represented the Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research. He acts as a scientific director of the centre while also leading the Olomouc division of the Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Together with his team, he contributed to decoding the genomes of barley, banana, and bread wheat. The Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium with Olomouc’s participation presented the first fully annotated reference genome for bread wheat in its paper in the journal Science. At the end of the year 2018, the year of the discovery, Jaroslav Doležel became the 2018 Czech Mind recipient—the most prestigious Czech science award. In his lecture, Prof Doležel described the long journey that led to this remarkable achievement. In addition, he explained to the audience how vital it is to focus on plant genomes in general. This particular knowledge is essential to adapting our crops to new environments, making them hardier with respect to pests, diseases, or drought.
“Ensuring sufficient amounts of produce seems problematic in the long run. For instance, this year we’ll consume more than we’ve harvested. The world’s population is spiralling and hunger kills more people each year than malaria, AIDS, and tuberculosis put together. That is why new methods for crop cultivation are vital, and will enable us to obtain plants with the desired properties. Such methods are based on genetic manipulation of plants, thus requiring knowledge of the plant genomes. Unfortunately, Europe is not open to employing them,” said Doležel. In his talk, he also explained the complexity of plant genomes and the method for sorting chromosomes by flow cytometry, a method developed and used on a daily basis solely in Olomouc. In addition, he focused on BAC library construction that will enable the decoding of longer sequences of genetic information. Other challenges that researchers need to overcome were also mentioned.
“In science, you have to keep your eyes open, and never be content to rest on your laurels, otherwise you stagnate. It’s sink or swim, and we aim to swim,” added Doležel.
The lecture series will continue on March 6th, when Radek Zbořil, Director of the Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, will talk about carbon nanostructures. Marián Hajdúch, Director of the Institute of Molecular and Translational Medicine, will be the third to deliver his talk, and Pavel Šaradín, a political scientist at the Faculty of Arts, will conclude the series on March 27th.