Czech Chemical Society appreciated Radek Zbořil’s accomplishments

The Miloš Hudlický Prize for significant contribution published within the Chemistry Europe consortium was awarded to physical chemist Radek Zbořil from CATRIN, Palacký University, on May 30 during the executive board meeting of Czech Chemical Society (CChS). One of the most prominent Czech chemists and material scientists was the corresponding author of a paper which reported on the development of a simple electrochemical nanosensor for the detection of the broad-spectrum antibiotic chloramphenicol.

„I am honored to have been granted this award by the Czech chemical community, which is approved by the committee of the Czech Chemical Society. Just like any other award in the Czech Republic or abroad. However, the award belongs to all the co-authors, whom I would like to thank for their effort,“ said Zbořil.

The paper that caught the attention of CChS members was published in 2016 under the title Advanced Sensing of Antibiotics with Magnetic Gold Nanocomposite: Electrochemical Detection of Chloramphenicol in Chemistry: A European Journal. The researchers used magnetic nanostructures in combination with gold nanoparticles to prepare the nanosensor. Petr Jakubec, Veronika Urbanová and Zdenka Medříková were among the authors.

„The use of nanosensors for the detection of chemical substances or biomolecules has a wide potential for application in environmental technologies, food industry or medical diagnostics. It is certainly one of the progressive scientific directions, which will be further enhanced in the near future thanks to atomic engineering approaches. The new generation of sensors will achieve even better detection limits and higher selectivity with an expected simple technological solution and very fast determination of target molecules“, predicted the development of the field Zbořil, who is the best material scientist in the Czech Republic according to the recent edition of the international ranking of scientists by Research.com. He has also repeatedly appeared on Clarivate Analytics‘ list of the world’s Most Highly Cited Researchers. He has been on the editorial boards of several journals published by Springer Nature, Wiley and Elsevier. As one of the few Czech scientists, he was also a member of the evaluation panel of the European Research Council assessing prestigious ERC Advanced grants last year. In the past, he has also received the Award of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports for outstanding results in the field of science and research.

The Miloš Hudlický Prize is awarded annually on the proposal of any member, group or body of the CChS. The laureates are decided by the editorial board of Chemické listy journal, the decision is approved by the CChS Board.

31. 5. 2023