Graduation ceremony
This week, we hold another graduation ceremonies for our successful graduates. We would like to congratulate the new masters, engineers and bachelors and wish them much professional and personal success!
Fibroblast growth factor FGF2-STAB, which was developed at MUNI, has now been patented, not just in Europe but also in Singapore, with patent proceedings also ongoing in a number of other countries. The patent is shared between Masaryk University and the university spin-off ‘Enantis’, which is in charge of the commercial use of the growth factor molecule. The discovery will have applications in cell biology, regenerative medicine and cosmetics.
As you may have read in the Magazine ‘M’, fibroblast growth factors are proteins that support cell growth and division. Researchers from Masaryk University not only managed to discover and describe the key properties of the FGF2 protein, they were also able to stabilise the factor thanks to protein engineering.
Protein engineering modifications to FGF2 lasted three years and focused on the thermodynamic stability of the protein. “We gradually exchanged some amino acids in its structure for others, introducing so-called point mutations. Through this process, we strengthened interactions between the amino acids, thereby increasing the overall robustness of the protein. We mastered the design of mutations and their construction quickly, but then followed a long period of testing their effect on FGF2 biological activity. We had to be very careful not to damage the protein, so we tested each of the thousands of protein variants individually", added David Bednář from the Loschmidt Laboratories, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University.
This week, we hold another graduation ceremonies for our successful graduates. We would like to congratulate the new masters, engineers and bachelors and wish them much professional and personal success!
During their 20th Antarctic expedition to the Czech J.G. Mendel Station on James Ross Island, young scientists experienced an average weight gain. This surprising finding comes from body measurements and 3D full-body and facial scans conducted before and after the expedition by Masaryk University, Faculty of Science anthropologists using the A.D.A.P.T. software platform.