<p><strong>Prof. Ing. Michal Kohout, Ph.D. is originally from southern Bohemia. He started studying at UCT Prague in 2000 after high school in Soběslav. After his postdoctoral research at the Institut of Analytical Chemistry of the University of Vienna, he decided to return to his alma mater, UCT Prague, and extend, apply and transfer knowledge and experience he gained abroad. He was recently named full professor and, in addition to research and teaching, considers his mission as professor to be setting an example for students in terms of not being afraid to start one’s own business since he, with colleagues, founded a UCT Prague spin-off company, Galochrom, discussed below.</strong></p>
<h5><strong>What does your research group do? What is the focus of your research activities?</strong></h5>
<p>We have been dealing with liquid crystals for a very long time. Liquid crystals are organic materials with various applications, and as research evolves, it’s expected that liquid crystals will have some added value in real-life applications, beyond simply being liquid crystalline (e.g. being chiral, sensitive to light or to magnetic fields). We try to modify molecules so that they can handle the various demands that modern materials chemistry places on them.</p>
<p>The second area of focus, chiral stationary phases for liquid chromatography, I brought back with me to UCT Prague from my post-doc stay. In liquid chromatography, we study systems that are used in the analysis of drugs (if an active substance is chemically and optically pure), for example.</p>
<p>Together with my colleagues and students, we also work on various side projects in classical organic chemistry, such as organocatalysis.</p>
<h5><strong>Most people can only conceptualize solid crystals. Can you introduce us to the world of liquid crystals?</strong></h5>
<p>It’s quite simple: liquid crystals are basically crystals too. One can imagine a crystal as being an ordered and oriented structure with molecules precisely and unambiguously arranged in space. Liquid crystals also have these characteristics, but their molecules can also move and are mobile even though they have, let’s say, a partially-preserved crystalline structure, for they are in the so-called mesophase. To conceptualize this, one could simply compare this to a system of straws floating in the same direction, because the molecules are arranged like this and are able to move when acted upon by an external impulse (e.g. electric or magnetic field or light). A structure can be rearranged so that it occupies a new, lowest energy arrangement. Liquid crystals are used, for example, in optoelectric devices, and we’re all surrounded by liquid crystals, which are not just used in monitors, televisions, and watch displays, but also in soap or cell membranes. One doesn’t even realize how many liquid crystalline substances and systems actually are all around us in the real world.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/VSCHT_Pokousime_se_uspet_se_spin_off_firmou_Galochrom_profesor_Michal_Kohout_e7be735e35.jpg" alt="UCT Prague: We are trying to succeed with the spin-off company Galochrom"/></p>
<h5><strong>Is there anything else you’re up to that you’d like to tell us about?</strong></h5>
<p>I’d put liquid chromatography into the background a bit. Let me put it this way: the world of liquid crystals research is a kind of long-distance race, and we don’t know for sure if and when relatively complex molecules will be used. They certainly have the potential to be used in real life, but in the distant future. It is not easy to prepare and enhance them, so that they meet various requirements and do as many extra things as we would like.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if we look at the area of chromatography, the real world application of new research results happens relatively quickly. If we prepare a chromatography column that is significantly better than what’s currently on the market, it might be commercially interesting and result in a product that we’ll see on the market in our lifetimes.</p>
<p>But it bothers me and my colleagues that even the development of unique stationary phases is still too slow, that it takes too long for a chromatographic column to reach the market. In 2017, we tried to approach several large manufacturers with a unique system we patented. Unfortunately, there was no interest in this technology because manufactures would have to change their production technologies slightly. Because of this, my colleagues and I decided to found our own company, the Galochrom, UCT Prague spin-off. This way, we also wish to show younger colleagues and students that they don’t have to be afraid of starting a company and entering the business world.</p>
<h5><strong>How is Galochrom doing?</strong></h5>
<p>We are in the early phases. We founded the spin-off in September 2023, and since then, we placed second in a European start-up competition, which we consider to be a great success. We are currently trying to put the first products on the market and prove that they are better than those already available. Of course, we believe that our products will be adopted.</p>
<h5><strong>What practical value do you think your research and professional activities have for society and your field?</strong></h5>
<p>Our multimodal columns will have a wider range of applications and will thus be able to replace three to four standard columns. This will lead to dramatic savings for end users as well as lower solvent and solvent disposal costs.</p>
<p>As for liquid crystals, they’re a long shot, as I’ve already said, but we might, for example, use a system of so-called dopants. Let’s take a photosensitive material. We don’t have to use it as a single component; instead, we can add it to a cheaper commercial material and mix it (5-10%). Thanks to the dopant, an entire system is sensitive to light and we can not only switch individual parts (pixels) from the mesophase to the liquid phase, but also read this information with a laser. Such systems could serve as optical memories.</p>
<h5><strong>You recently became a full professor. What does this mean for you? What do you teach and what are your first impressions as professor?</strong></h5>
<p>Of course, I consider this a great personal success built upon the great work and support by my students, colleagues, and mentors. My original motivation for entering academia, a long time ago, was a promise I made to my dad: that I would graduate as one of the best in my class at UCT Prague. And I’ve made it this far, so I think he would be proud of me and that fills me with a certain sense of fulfilment. I teach organic chemistry. So for first impressions: I have more work, but it’s interesting for me, nevertheless, to teach students who are just starting their university programs. My lectures before this were for advanced students and doctoral candidates. All of a sudden, when you’re teaching core subjects, you start trying not to influence students’ mind sets too much while still conveying the information in some absorbable way, reassuring them that chemistry is actually cool and that chemists are pretty normal people.</p>
<h5><strong>It must be quite challenging to capture the attention of an auditorium full of people and to decide how much to go into detail. Do you struggle with this kind of thing? Do you have any tricks for engaging your audience?</strong></h5>
<p>It’s true, when you enter an auditorium and there are 180 people sitting there instead of 20, it’s really an incredible difference. It’s not so much about the number of people itself, because there are about the same number of people at conference presentations, but conference attendees are experts who aren’t really surprised by anything in the field. Teaching core subjects is rather about setting some level of comprehensibility for what you’re explaining.</p>
<p>Gradually, I’m getting faster at preparing my lectures, but at first, it was very time-consuming. Yet, during the class, sometimes I still get taken away a bit and then I get behind and play catch up. (He laughs.)</p>
<p>As for student engagement, I tell my colleagues that I’m trying to use my latent theatre talents, so hope that&#39;s at least somewhat successful. I’m going back in time a couple of decades and am going to use some simple, themed experiments from back then in my lectures.</p>
<h5><strong>You started studying at UCT Prague in 2000. What do you think has changed the most for students since then?</strong></h5>
<p>Definitely the quality of the food in the canteens. One hundred percent! But what has really changed for the better are the travel possibilities. That&#39;s the biggest shift I see. Today, it’s easy to go abroad for a semester, almost whenever you want. There are countless ways to do this. I remember how I tried to do an internship during my doctoral studies, but preparations were crazy. So instead, I arranged at a conference with my mentor’s colleague to join her laboratory within a European project because it was so much easier to go this way. Going abroad gives you a wealth of new experiences, and it’s great that this option is much more accessible than before.</p>
<h5><strong>Is there anything that you did not like as a student and managed to change—or are at least trying to change—as a professor?</strong></h5>
<p>For a relatively long time, my colleagues and I tried to appeal to UCT Prague’s management to provide competitive scholarships for doctoral students. Doctoral candidates are the UCT Prague’s main strength because without them, the university couldn’t do basic research. They should be valued accordingly. So I’m a supporter of finding ways to increase scholarships and I think we’ve been quite successful in this regard.</p>
<h5><strong>What would you like to achieve in your professional and personal lives?</strong></h5>
<p>As a professional, I would like that the things we’ve invented would actually be used. Research, whatever form, should aim at developing things that are useful for humanity. Basic research is great, but I like finding applications while striving to advance both science and society as a whole. Why else would we be here?</p>
<p>Personally, my highest priority is work-life balance. Achieving some reasonable balance with work, what I like to do, and time for family.</p>
<h5><strong>What does the future hold for your research group?</strong></h5>
<p>The long-term plan involves spin-off companies and connecting academia with the commercial sector. Engagement in basic research is necessary for finding usable materials and applications, yet connecting these applications directly to the industrial sector is crucial for us. The plan is to try to make a platform for quick and simple technology transfer at UCT Prague.</p>
<h5><strong>What do you do when you turn out the lights in your lab?</strong></h5>
<p>I have hobbies I’ve done for a long time. I’m either going to volleyball or trying to go fishing. Fishing is more time-consuming, so I mainly stick to volleyball. And, of course, I’m running home to spend time with my loved ones.</p>


We are trying to succeed with the spin-off company Galochrom

<p><strong>Talking to Michal Kolář is a pleasure for every interviewer. A graduate of <a href="https://lcms.labrulez.com/companies/16"><strong>Charles University’s Faculty of Science</strong></a>, with many years of experience in the German scientific context (including a stint at the renowned Max Planck Institute), Kolář gets straight to the point. He’s not afraid to bring up uncomfortable topics. He can explain complex matters from the world of physical chemistry using interesting analogies. At the same time, after sitting down with him for a few minutes, you realize he has the gift of infecting you right away with his thirst for knowledge and understanding the world around him.</strong></p>
<h5><strong>This year, you started working on a project, Towards an atomic understanding of the first moments of a protein’s life, supported by the Czech Science Foundation (CSF). The catchy title caught my attention and is actually the reason why we chose you for the interview, though several other researchers from UCT Prague also received CSF funding.</strong></h5>
<p>When I talk about science, I make an effort and enjoy interpreting my findings in the form of stories. Our project is about researching ribosomes, something I’ve been working on for seven years. I like to personify them and often compare the functioning of ribosomes to human childbirth during lectures. Because it’s easier to imagine something as intrinsically human as childbirth than it is to conceptualize the Lennard-Jones potential, which describes the interactions between atoms. A few weeks ago, Professor Pavel Jungwirth received a grant from the European Research Council (ERC). He is going to study, in detail, the interactions between atoms and ions, and in all interviews, he uses the analogy of a beating human heart. He sees a connection between our heartbeats and some microscopic parameter for calcium ion. That’s great, isn’t it?</p>
<h5><strong>If a grant proposal has a catchy title and is written in an accessible way, do you think it has a better chance of getting funded?</strong></h5>
<p>From a personal point of view, it would be great if this were the case. But I haven’t written enough proposals to be able to answer this question based on statistics. Quantitative research has shown that the appearance of the first page of a proposal is important to reviewers in the grant application review process. So, in this case, I made the title and the opening page stand out. That said, another successful CSF proposal in which I was a co-investigator was just the opposite. In terms of graphics, it was so ugly that I wouldn’t want to evaluate it. But the proposal was funded (laughs – editor’s note).</p>
<h5><strong>Please elaborate on what you expect to encounter as you are proceeding with this project, in terms of understanding the birth of proteins.</strong></h5>
<p>Almost every protein in the world has formed some kind of ribosome. A ribosome is a 25 nm complex with about 50 molecules that catalyses a chemical reaction. Protein synthesis takes place by combining protein building blocks, amino acids. An unbranched chain is formed, which typically has around 300 amino acid residues. For the protein, getting out of the ribosome takes quite a long time, on the order of seconds. The protein therefore spends a non-negligible part of its life bound to a ribosome, like a child connected to its mother by the umbilical cord, to use the childbirth analogy. No one knows exactly what happens to the protein at this stage; it’s uncharted territory.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/VSCHT_Martin_Balicky_Vsichni_muzete_delat_doktorat_na_Stanfordu_nebo_MIT_276ee55a64/VSCHT-Martin-Balicky-Vsichni-muzete-delat-doktorat-na-Stanfordu-nebo-MIT.jpg" alt="UCT Prague/Martin Balický: Michal Kolář from the Laboratory of Biomolecular Dynamics"/></p>
<h5><strong>Why don’t we know anything about this process yet?</strong></h5>
<p>Current techniques, such as electron cryogenic microscopy or nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, do not “see” the initial phase of protein birth. Accordingly, we only have structural experiments available for about ten different nascent proteins, which are very specific. We know almost nothing about the rest. I study nature using computer models, machine learning, and structural analysis, thanks to which we can “see” what an experiment cannot.</p>
<h5><strong>What is the basis for modelling something that cannot be seen?</strong></h5>
<p>We know what amino acids look like, how they join in a chain, and how the chain grows. We also know the physical laws of the microuniverse. We enter the information into a computer and use it to predict what’s happening inside a ribosome, for example, in a part that’s called the exit tunnel. There are some special constricted places that the protein has to pass through. We do not know how it moves through the constriction region, what force makes it to do so. We also not know why constriction exists in ribosomes at all. What purpose could it have, since evolution has not removed it in over hundreds of millions of years? There are biochemical experiments showing that without narrowing, ribosomes function poorly, making non-functional proteins or not making them at all. It is also interesting that a large class of antibiotics binds precisely to the constriction region, which adds overlap to the applied setting complementing our basic research activities.</p>
<h5><strong>I assume that modelling events at the atomic level would be very demanding in terms of computational power. Do you use computing supercentres, or do you make do with UCT Prague’s infrastructure?</strong></h5>
<p>We have been able to employ the largest machines in the world for quite some time now. When we do a molecular dynamics simulation of a ribosome and count about 2.5 million atoms and their interactions, we consume supercomputer computing time in the order of weeks. We use the computing centre in Ostrava and compete for time elsewhere. Just as an example, when I returned from Germany from the Max Planck Institute in 2018, I had 40 million core hours of computing time allocated for my project in Stuttgart. At that time, in the Czech Republic, the Ostrava supercomputer centre had just announced a competition with the capacity of 70 million core hours for the entire republic.</p>
<h5><strong>Is limited computing time limiting to you in your research?</strong></h5>
<p>I am more limited in my “real-world” time, because I also have to teach, have a family, and also commute quite far to UCT Prague. If I suddenly had access to a large computing resource, I would be under more pressure to use it. Calculations need to be well planned and phased.</p>
<h5><strong>You mentioned that the outputs of your project may have overlap to applied settings, to antibiotics development. Is potential use in medicine (and thus helping people) a motivating factor for you in being a scientist? Or do you just enjoy exploring the unknown, and when a discovery comes with real-world impact, it’s a nice bonus?</strong></h5>
<p>B is correct: I&#39;m really interested in how things work and why they do what they do. I look at the world realistically and do not set unnecessarily large goals. I am not lying to anyone, not even to myself, that I will invent a new pharmaceutical. I don’t know, of course, if twenty years from now I might be disappointed by the fact that I spent my whole life tinkering with theoretical concepts and that you can’t buy anything I developed in a pharmacy. However, I do not share the current obsession funding agencies have, requiring basic research to be related to a social problem. After all, a lot of revolutionary and useful things have come about thanks to people digging into something that, at first glance, seemed useless.</p>
<h5><strong>I find your approach to basic research perfectly legitimate.</strong></h5>
<p>It is legitimate when we have fun together. But I can’t simply write to a funding agency that I’m interested in why there are suddenly five positively charged amino acids here in the ribosome and why evolution didn’t throw them away. That I don’t care whether an antibiotic is currently being attached to the site. But the funding agencies, in principle, require possible real-world applications. So I’m just going to tell them what they want to hear, because undoubtedly, there’s always some link to an antibiotic. But in the drug research field, an idea is often so far from implementation that it’s pointless to declare it.</p>
<h5><strong>At UCT Prague, you lead the Laboratory of Biomolecular Dynamics. How difficult was it to start this group?</strong></h5>
<p>Our group has been operating for six years now and the beginnings were hard for me. I had nothing to do with this university before coming here from Germany, and I think that UCT Prague is not very good at integrating scientists who did their training elsewhere. I see inbreeding being cultivated at every turn. To this day, I sometimes feel like a dissident who clearly has a different opinion than the people who studied at UCT Prague and straight away continued their academic careers here.</p>
<p><img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/labrulez-bucket-strapi-h3hsga3/VSCHT_Kolar_lab_at_UCT_Prague_We_are_a_young_group_of_researchers_and_students_at_University_of_Chemistry_and_Technology_in_Prague_94978e6377/VSCHT-Kolar-lab-at-UCT-Prague-We-are-a-young-group-of-researchers-and-students-at-University-of-Chemistry-and-Technology-in-Prague.jpg" alt="UCT Prague: Kolář lab at UCT Prague: We are a young group of researchers and students at University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague"/></p>
<h5><strong>What did you struggle with the most?</strong></h5>
<p>I don’t list my daily frustrations (laughs). It has been time-consuming for me to find the necessary forms. I didn’t know how grant applications work at UCT Prague, who was in charge of which agenda, or how teaching works here. I often didn’t even know who to ask, and when I did ask, I usually didn’t get an answer. A lot of information is spread through grapevines among colleagues who spent their entire careers here and know how things work.</p>
<p>But enough criticizing: I was given space for absolute independence, and no one has told me what research topic to pursue and how, which has been fantastic. And some things are changing for the better. For example, getting the Project Centre going is a great step forward.</p>
<h5><strong>If you were to compare your time here with life at the Max Planck Institute, what do you miss the most?</strong></h5>
<p>Probably a way of thinking about science that I don’t see here. Here, we talk a lot about grants, administrative duties, and citations. But to talk to someone about ribosomes and proteins first and only later discuss about administrative tasks? I don’t experience that here, unlike in Germany.</p>
<h5><strong>Are you missing anything else?</strong></h5>
<p>Although I have been working at UCT Prague for over six years, I do not have any intensive cooperation with anyone else at the university. I’m certainly partly to blame for this; I don’t tend to actively reach out and try to convince others about things we might do. In Germany, we always had events where we could meet each other and solve purely scientific matters. For example, internal seminars, conferences, and thematic lectures, which many people attended. People were active, curious, and interested in learning how their colleagues could help them. A few days ago I was at a lecture on machine learning organized by the UNICORN association, and there were maybe ten, fifteen of us there.</p>
<h5><strong>Why do you think it’s like this?</strong></h5>
<p>The fact that the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry AS CR (IOCB) is nearby might play a role, because a lot of high-quality/ambitious people do their doctorates there or work there. Many UCT Prague colleagues are strictly technologically oriented thus they do not crave scientific knowledge. I need people who enjoy learning about the workings of nature and are not scared of words such as derivation, optimization, or programming. In my opinion, UCT Prague does not target the best students in the given age cohort. When I teach sophomores, I ask them, for example, who will go to Stanford after they graduate? And they stare at me with surprise, wondering if I lost my marbles. Almost no one starts with an ambition to do a PhD at a top-ranked university. Then I tell them: you could all go to Stanford or MIT; people there usually don’t have better brains than you, they’re just dedicated to their interests and consider it normal—even in their free time!—to talk about science, learning, solving tasks together, and preparing for a scientific career.</p>
<h5><strong>Is there something in which, on the other hand, UCT Prague excels compared to institutions where you worked previously?</strong></h5>
<p>I really like the social activities organized by the university on the Dejvice campus. CrossCampus, Hanami, Campusfest. I also find the relationships between younger and older students that is visible, for example, with tutoring activities, to be great.</p>
<h5><strong>How do you feel about the possibility of going abroad again in the future?</strong></h5>
<p>Right now, the Czech Republic is the place where I want to live permanently, but I’ve not yet closed the door to future international chapters. If the opportunity presented itself and, above all, provided favourable conditions for my family, I would like to do more work outside the country. Let’s say, as part of a sabbatical, for example. I have a few places in mind where I’d love to collaborate with specific scientists for a longer period of time. But I also have three daughters and a wife, and each of them has interests and responsibilities here in the Czech Republic…it would not be easy to coordinate.</p>
<h5><strong>Do you have a scientific dream?</strong></h5>
<p>You just touched upon my soft spot. All great scientists say that you have to have big dreams and goals. I don’t have them. I’m a little sorry about this but it’s probably connected to my aforementioned realist outlook on life and my tendency to avoid disappointment. So I’m just gradually working my way through the laws of nature.</p>
<h5><strong>You are one of the few active Czech scientists on Twitter (@mhkoscience). What motivates you?</strong></h5>
<p>I was originally looking for doctoral candidates there. Now it’s a kind of hobby. In any case, science is a community affair, and if a person wants to be successful, he or she must be part of a scientific community. It rarely happens that a lone scientist suddenly comes up with a discovery that takes the whole world’s breath away. Rather, it is about small discoveries that the community gradually adopts and continues to refine. Without marketing, no one will know you’re around these days, so I’m tweeting.</p>
<h5><strong>You use a combination of bike and train to get to work from the countryside near Kolin.</strong></h5>
<p>I don’t like to drive, and traveling by train, in particular, is a special to me. It’s a time when I can think and feel good. I really enjoy train travel, even though I hardly travelled by train as a child. During my studies, I travelled along the Trans-Siberian Highway and in southern India. On the Beijing-Almaty-Moscow-Košice route, I returned to the Czech Republic by train after my friends and I decided to visit northern China and track Siberian tigers.</p>
<h5><strong>Did you succeed?</strong></h5>
<p>Fortunately, no. Plans are one thing, but when a person enters the forest and realizes that a 300-kilogram tiger might be waiting for them, it’s just not good (laughs).</p>


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