Photo-Actuating Systems / Polymers for 3D Printing and Multicellular Spheroid Harvesting

Thursday November 12th there will be two open lectures in room 257 in VR-II

Dr. Miroslav Mrlík will begin with a brief introduction to Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic, including opportunities for student and staff exchanges through the Erasmus+ programme.

He will then present his research on photo-responsive materials, focusing on materials that respond to external stimuli, particularly light. The presentation will cover the fundamental mechanisms involved, characterization techniques and future perspectives in this field of research.

Dr. Mrlík has served as Principal Investigator on several research projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation in the field of smart materials. In 2013, shortly after completing his PhD, he was awarded third place in the Jean-Marie Lehn Prize for Chemistry by the French Embassy in the Czech Republic.

He is the author or co-author of more than 144 scientific publications, with an h-index of 35 (Web of Science) and over 3,100 citations. His research output also includes five utility models, four patents and three book chapters.

Next Dr. Markéta Ilčíková will give here lectur Polymers for 3D Printing and Multicellular Spheroid Harvesting where she presents research on polymer materials for tissue engineering, focusing on synthetic strategies, characterization of key material properties and processing methods for producing suitable substrates for tissue cultivation.

Dr. Markéta Ilčíková is a Researcher at the Centre of Polymer Systems, Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic.

She received her PhD from the Polymer Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2013. In 2019, she joined Lodz University of Technology in Poland, where she worked in the research group of Professor Joanna Pietrasik on a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND project investigating graphene oxide-based hybrid nanoparticles as functional additives for polymer blends.

Her current research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of mechanically initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (mechanoATRP) and developing novel materials for tissue engineering.

Dr. Ilčíková is also involved in teaching and student supervision. She teaches Physical Chemistry laboratory courses for bachelor's students and lectures on Smart Materials for master's students at Tomas Bata University. She supervises both master's and PhD students.

She is the co-author of 61 scientific publications, with an h-index of 23 (Web of Science) and more than 1,680 citations.