Leoš Valášek - Biography#

Leoš Valášek is head of the Laboratory of Regulation of Gene Expression (LRGE) at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IMIC CAS) in Prague, where he served as the vice chairman of the IMIC CAS Council in between years 2007‐2016. In 2014 he was elected as a member of the Academy Assembly of CAS. His laboratory, established in June 2006, investigates a basic concept of translation and various aspects of its control. The studies combine the use of budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and mammalian cells lines, and employ tools of molecular and structural biology, biochemistry, and genetics. Leoš received his master’s degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 1994 from the Charles University in Prague and subsequently his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1999 from the University of Vienna. He went on to do postdoctoral work in the Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Development, NICHD, NIH, under supervision of Dr. Hinnebusch. In June 2004, Leoš received the “welcome‐back‐home” Fellowship of J. E. Purkyne from the CAS and returned to the Czech Republic to be appointed as Independent Investigator at the IMIC CAS in Prague. In 2005 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellowship, became the HHMI International Research Scholar, and received an NIH FIC Global Health Research Initiative Program Award. In June 2010, Leoš became the first Czech‐based researcher ever to renew the Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellowship; the second renewal occurred in 2015. In November 2011, his group together with 6 other young groups in the Czech Republic received a prestigious Centre of Excellence Grant from the Czech Science Foundation. In November 2018, Leoš’s group received another prestigious grant of excellence from the Czech Science Foundation called EXPRO.

Under Leoš' leadership, 12 PhD students, 5 diploma students and 8 bachelors completed their studies successfully. Leoš and his lab (https://www.biomed.cas.cz/mbu/lrge/#top) have published 76 papes in top‐notch journals including Nature, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Molecular Cell, Nature Protocols, Nucleic Acids Research, Genes & Development, EMBO J., Cell Reports, and won the best original research publication carried out at the Institute of Microbiology ASCR award in years 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. In September 2015, Leoš co‐organized the bi-annual Protein Synthesis and Translational Control meeting in EMBL in Heidelberg (Germany). In February 2016, the international evaluation committee selected his laboratory as one of the 13 most prestigious labs in the entire CAS. In February 2017, Leoš defended his Res. Prof. (DSc.) dissertation with the CAS. In 2020, Leoš’s group won the GACR President’s 2020 award from the Czech Science Foundation and was awarded the most prestigious scientific grant in the Czech Republic – Praemium Academiae from the CAS. In July 2024, Leoš became an EMBO member.