Charles University and its Faculty of Science were honoured by a visit from the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Prof. Victor Ambros, who participated in the discovery of a new way to regulate gene expression using microRNAs. The Nobel laureate met with Rector Milena Králíčková at Charles University. After being welcomed at the Faculty of Science of Charles University by Dean Vladimír Krylov, he delivered a lecture entitled “Development timers in a tiny worm!” in the fully packed Great Geological Auditorium. The lecture was followed by a lively discussion.
Professor Ambrose was invited to Charles University by Rector Milena Králíčková in November 2024, during a meeting at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, where a delegation from Charles University visited as part of a business trip to the United States and where Ambros works. At the Faculty of Science of Charles University, he was welcomed by the Dean, Assoc. Prof. Vladimír Krylov, RNDr., Ing., Ph.D., and the former Dean of the Faculty, Prof. Jiří Zima, RNDr., CSc.
"I know that Charles University is one of the oldest European universities and its graduates are exceptional people – scientists who are successful across many professional fields. I accepted the invitation with great pleasure. I am also glad that I was able to meet fellow biologists as part of my lecture," said Nobel laureate Victor Ambros.
"Professor Victor Ambrose's visit is an opportunity to meet a great scientist, and a deeply human, empathetic person at that. His work not only pushes the boundaries of scientific knowledge, but is also an inspiration in the broadest sense of the word for new generations of scientists," said Milena Králíčková, Rector of Charles University.
"It was a great honour and pleasure to welcome Professor Victor Ambrose to our faculty. His fundamental contribution to the discovery of the microRNA regulatory pathway marked a real breakthrough in developmental biology and pointed to a completely new way of regulating gene expression, but evolutionarily conserved across animals and in a modified form in plants. In addition, Professor Ambros is not only a pioneer in his field, but also an exceptional speaker, which he confirmed during his lecture," said Vladimír Krylov, Dean of the Faculty of Science of Charles University.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Victor Ambros, an American biologist of Polish origin, together with Gary Ruvkun in 2024. The subject of the award was the discovery of microRNAs and their role in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Ten years earlier (2014), they also jointly acquired the so-called The Gruber Prize in Genetics (for groundbreaking contributions to genetic research). During his stay in Prague, Professor Victor Ambros will be one of thirty speakers at a conference organized by the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences: The Argonautes 2025 (27–30 August 2025), focused on argonaut proteins in organisms.