The award for outstanding quality of women's scientific work in the prestigious Werner von Siemens Award competition was received by Mgr. Dáša Bohačiaková, Ph.D. She has been dedicated to working with stem cells and cerebral organoids.
Siemens has presented the Werner von Siemens Award for 26 years. The competition aims to recognize the authors of the best student, graduate, and scientific works and university educators. It focuses on work in technical fields and natural sciences, including IT and medical disciplines, striving to contribute to the development of Czech higher education, science, and research.
Dáša Bohačiaková received a special award from the CEO of Siemens for Outstanding Quality of Women's Scientific Work. She focuses on Alzheimer’s disease research, utilizing cerebral organoids in her studies.
Cerebral organoids are small clusters of cells created from pluripotent stem cells that structurally and compositionally resemble the human brain. “These mini-brains, about the size of a pinhead, can be generated in laboratory conditions from healthy stem cells as well as from patient-derived cells affected by Alzheimer’s disease,” explained award-winning biologist Dáša Bohačiaková.
Scientists can compare cerebral, or brain, organoids to describe differences. In mini-brains derived from Alzheimer’s patients’ cells, they can even observe protein aggregates found in patients' brains, which are considered one of the causes of dementia resulting from the disease.
“This allows us to theoretically analyze in a Petri dish whether certain substances could slow down or completely halt the disease's progression,” noted Bohačiaková, who entered this field of research thanks to her expertise in stem cells and collaborations with other research groups studying Alzheimer’s disease at Masaryk University and abroad.
The need for appropriate cellular models for their research led the scientists to create organoids. These models allow them to observe disease progression and test the potential effects of various substances.
Bohačiaková considers the Werner von Siemens Award a prestigious scientific honour and is very grateful that this year’s jury selected her. “I must add that this would not have been possible without the tremendous work of my team in the laboratory. I see this award as recognition for the entire research team.” She also hopes the award will help raise awareness of her research group among the scientific community and potential collaborators.
“Personally, I consider it a great success that I currently have an excellent team of people who work well together, enabling our experiments and projects to run smoothly, leading to discoveries and the adoption of new technologies. I hope we can continue this work for a long time,” she added.
Her most significant scientific achievement so far is that the brain cell models her team creates truly mimic disease progression in vitro, in laboratory conditions. This makes them valuable tools for studying the causes of Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders.
Dáša Bohačiaková studied Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Faculty of Science at Masaryk University. She earned her PhD in Medical Biology at the Faculty of Medicine and then spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego. Upon returning, she joined the Department of Histology and Embryology at the Faculty of Medicine, where she now leads her research group.
Four years ago, Bohačiaková faced the challenge of returning to research after a partial career break due to maternity leave. She was awarded one of the first Career Restart grants from Masaryk University's internal Grant Agency, which supports promising scientists who had to take a long break from their work.
“This support from MU was a crucial financial aid because balancing work and family life with very young children requires involving other people to help with childcare while we were at work,” Bohačiaková said about the grant's impact. In the following years, two of her colleagues also received the grant, allowing them to return to the team earlier thanks to the university’s support.
What kind of support would she appreciate today? Any reduction in administrative workload. “Filling out timesheets for some grants every month is truly a waste of everyone’s time. And currently, with grant applications and annual reports where the same information is repeatedly required, it is frustrating to re-enter the same data and justifications into numerous tables—especially when everything is going according to plan,” she pointed out, highlighting a long-standing issue in Czech science.
She added that it would also be beneficial if Masaryk University had ongoing opportunities for internal grants to deepen collaboration between university departments. “A grant for PhD students to try out the process of applying for and managing a grant would also be fantastic.”
This year, 55 students received the Dean’s Award in Czech study programs and the Excellence Award in English study programs across several categories. The awards were presented to the students by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at MU, Martin Repko, Vice-Dean Eva Brichtová, and Vice-Dean Lubomír Křivan.
At its regular meeting on March 25, 2025, the Academic Senate of the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, approved the budget for 2025.
