Our new JuniorStar: The biggest challenge? Starting from scratch

Could you introduce your winning JuniorStar research idea to us?

My research will focus on the development of new catalysts for chemical reactions. If I had to put it in perspective, imagine that you are somewhere in a valley and you have a bicycle with you. You can travel in different directions and you are able to climb hills with different heights, depending on your abilities. However, if you had an electric bike, you can also go up hills in other directions that you wouldn’t be able to climb with a normal bike and you’ll get to the hilltops much faster. A catalyst in chemical reactions works like an e-bike motor.

My goal is to understand how exactly these kinds of catalysts work so that we can modify them and then figure out how and where to use such catalysts for targeted reactivity.

In my JuniorStar project, I will deal with catalysts based on nickel complexes and the energy (the “engine” of the reaction) will come from either light or electrical potential. I’ll concurrently try to examine the sustainability of the entire project.

Who is conducting research with you?

I’m the only member of my group at the moment. However, the group will grow in 2025. I just returned to UCT Prague in August and, thanks to this grant, I will be able to assemble my team.

Are you recruiting new members?

Yes, I would welcome interest from students and potential candidates. Just contact me. I believe that—thanks to my interdisciplinary orientation—successful candidates will gain experience in various fields applicable to either a further research career or one in the commercial sector.

The JuniorStar grant category is very competitive. What made your stand out? What strengths did the evaluation committee highlight?

I haven’t seen the committee’s evaluation yet.

It’s really difficult to evaluate a proposal in the context of other proposals. All the proposals submitted are good, so I think luck also plays a role. Perhaps my interdisciplinary outlook caught the committee’s attention. Where there is a risk that something might not work, I suggested many options for overcoming problems in my proposal. Thanks to the risks involved in my research, I often encounter an obstacle that leads me to discover something completely new and interesting. The techniques and methods that I use in my research come, for example, from organic and inorganic synthesis, spectroscopy, photochemistry, electrochemistry, and quantum chemical calculations.

Why nickel catalysts? What makes nickel advantageous compared to other metals?

Nickel catalysts could replace more toxic, heavy, and expensive metals such as palladium or platinum. Recently, researchers have shown that nickel catalysts can catalyse a number of interesting reactions important to industrial production activities (e.g. various cross-coupling reactions). They also might have the potential to be used in reactions where existing catalysts are not good enough.

25 million CZK is a significant funding level. How do you plan to use these funds?

It is certainly a very generous grant and I am very grateful that the Czech Science Foundation has made such a substantial investment in supporting early career researchers. However, although the amount might seem high, one must realize that building and equipping a laboratory from scratch and hiring a completely new team is very expensive. I will not be freed from dealing with finances for five years, but I will definitely submit proposals for additional funding (for example, within the framework of my collaborator network).

What practical applications might your research have?

I am engaged in basic research. So, first of all, I try to understand how the aforementioned chemical systems work. My goal is to look at the investigated catalysts in detail. Once we gain deeper insights, it will be possible to use such catalysts on a more applied basis in the future. For example, right now, most nickel complexes cannot be used under normal conditions such as in air. However, if we better understand the principles regarding the reactivity of nickel complexes with oxygen, we can try to prevent them from reacting, thus opening the door to wider real-world applications.

Perhaps rather than replacing existing platinum and palladium catalysts (used in a very wide range of reactions in the commercial sector for the production of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, in petrochemicals, and so on), we could discover new directions in which the catalysts used to date cannot be used.

What do you think the biggest challenges to achieving your project goals are?

Probably the fact that we are starting from scratch. This means building a new, fully functional laboratory. Given that this is a relatively “hot” ​​research topic, the laboratory will gradually need to be developed to be competitive on the world stage. But the advantage of chemistry is that—even with basic equipment—you can do quality research and discover something interesting in any research endeavour.

What are you most looking forward to with JuniorStar?

Working with students. I myself have always learned something important from all my mentors. I hope that I’ll now be able to share my experience and knowledge with others.

You started with investigating the synthesis and production of pharmaceuticals at UCT Prague, and then moved on to modelling chemical properties in catalysis and theoretical chemistry during your postdoctoral work in the US. What drove this transformation?

In science, one should never stand still. One should always have a goal in mind for one’s research. What shaped me most were those moments when I came across something I didn’t know how to do or what to make of. Those things made me always yearn to learn more and move forward in exploration.

How did your international experience influence you and what “lessons learned” could benefit UCT Prague?

To be honest, studying abroad didn’t seem fundamentally different to me and I don’t find comparisons to be appropriate. Every place and every research group I’ve worked in has enriched me in some way. It’s not about where you go, but rather how open-minded you are. We also have top scientists and great research institutions here.

That said the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) had the advantage of being one of the best research institutions in the world while having a very low student-to-faculty ratio (it’s about half that of UCT Prague). And yet, over 40 Nobel laureates are associated with Caltech. That’s why you’ll always have plenty of opportunities there to constantly talk about science with top researchers, but that’s due to Caltech’s prestige, not the country it’s located in. There would certainly be things that are handled worse there than here.

Are you only interested in theoretical chemistry these days, or do you still occasionally engage in experimental chemistry?

I definitely engage in experimental chemistry as well. I started out at UCT Prague’s Department of Organic Chemistry and gained experience in organic synthesis. Then I moved on to computational and quantum chemistry, through research at the Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Science (IOCB CAS) and the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry. My first postdoctoral position was in computational chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Then I received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowship that enabled me to conduct research at Caltech. There I focused mainly on experimental chemistry again. The JuniorStar project will be experimental in nature but still be intertwined with aspects of theoretical chemistry.

Until recently, you also did work at IOCB CAS. Did you leave the Tomáš Slanina Group?

This collaboration was part of the so-called “return phase” of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship, where you receive support for two years outside Europe and then a year back in the Czech Republic (or other European country of origin). With Tomáš Slanina, I continued the research that I had been doing in the US and I was rather a kind of an observer in his research group. Even so, I had the opportunity to learn a lot from him and from the other members of the group. Tomáš and I continue to collaborate and are working on several joint projects.

A number of awards preceded your recent success. Which of these do you value most?

That’s a hard question. Every award is valuable in some way, and I value them all. I personally consider the most prestigious award I’ve ever received to be the Czech Mind – Doctorandus in Natural Sciences award. I received it just after moving to the US, so I hadn’t even really unpacked when I had to go back to the Czech Republic for the award ceremony. Otherwise, I see each of these awards as a kind of reminder that I’m on the right path and that I should continue in research. In science, you are often at the top for a while and then at the bottom again. So every award encourages you to keep going.

How did you prepare for JuniorStar and what would you recommend to others?

I had the advantage that I had enough time for writing the proposal thanks to the one-year return phase of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellowship. Thanks to this, I was able to prepare for everything, write slowly, and think the project thoroughly.

What would I recommend? Consult with more experienced colleagues and take rather a seriously critical look at your proposal before submitting it. Most importantly, believe in what you do and don’t be afraid to submit proposals to calls. The fact that I received several awards does not mean that I am exceptional. I was also lucky, but above all, I’ve never hesitated to put my hat in the ring.