History of the IBP

Research focused on the investigation of physical properties of biological systems has an old tradition in Brno. The history of biophysics in the former Czechoslovak Republic is closely connected with two men who worked at Masaryk University in the early 1930s, Ferdinand Herčík and Vilém Laufberger. While Professor Laufberger moved his activities to Charles University in Prague in 1935, Ferdinand Herčík remained in Brno.

Professor Herčík's scientific interests ranged from the study of effects of ionizing radiation on living organisms to molecular biophysics. These interests led him to initiate the establishment of a specialized laboratory dedicated to the research in biophysics.

On February 1, 1954, Professor Herčík established the Laboratory of Biophysics as a part of the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. On January 1, 1955, the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Biophysics (IBP) and Professor Ferdinand Herčík, who was also a member of the World Health Organization (WHO), became the director. In the initial phase, the Institute was mainly focused on radiobiological research.

Due to the experience and scientific results, the Institute was included in the State Research Program "Biophysical Research of Living Matter". By 1990, it became a center of postgraduate education in biophysics, and the researchers of the Institute participated also in the undergraduate education in cooperation with Masaryk University, called J.A. Purkyně University at that time, in Brno.

In 1966, after the death of Professor Ferdinand Herčík, the former scientific secretary Dr. Zdeněk Karpfel was elected the director of the Institute. Under his leadership the research goals have gradually shifted from radiobiology to cell and molecular biophysics. Since 1970 the research of the Institute of Biophysics has been included in international programs such as COMECON and Intercosmos. Other types of international collaboration were based mainly on bilateral cooperation between the countries of the Eastern bloc.

At the beginning of 1990, the system of "scientific planning" was abolished and the process of transformation of the Academy began. The transformation of the Institute of Biophysics began with the election of new Science Council and the election of new director, Dr. Milan Bezděk. The new scientific management of the Institute respected the traditional research activities but changed the internal organization of the Institute. Instead of former departments, competitive associations of teams with related research tasks were created. The research covered three thematic areas: molecular biophysics, biophysics of complex systems, biophysics of the effects of external factors.

In the next period, consistent with the transformation of the Academy of Sciences, the research activities of the individual teams were evaluated, and due to the reduction of the number of employees of the CAS, the number of researchers decreased to 65%, compared to previous years. These changes provided foundation for preparing the conditions for a new style of research work based on the individual responsibility of team leaders. The Institute was thus ready to participate in the grant system, which was introduced in 1990-1996. The Institute has thus become competitive, both nationally and internationally.

In 1997, Dr. Bezděk was elected a member of the Science Council of the Academy of Sciences and resigned as director. In the same year, Dr. Jana Šlotová was elected the new director. The institute became the Methodological and Educational Center for Molecular Biophysics and became part of the wider international scientific community.

In 1999, the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic granted to the Institute of Biophysics accreditation to participate in doctoral study Programs in cooperation with Faculty of Science of Masaryk University. The accreditation covered fields such as biophysics, molecular and cell biology, genetics, physiology and evolutionary biology of animals or immunology.

After year 2000, the management of the Institute focused on the systematic renewal of the infrastructure and on the creation of creative conditions for research. The laboratories of the Institute were grouped into five programs, the international contacts between scientists were stabilized and joint research continued on the basis of direct agreements or grants between the Institute and its partners. The research topics were determined based on the Scientific Conception, based on the traditions of the Institute and future scientific trends. This Conception is regularly updated.

In 2005, doc. RNDr. Stanislav Kozubek, DrSc became the director. It was a period of great hopes connected with possibilities of receiving financial support from the EU to build research infrastructure. The IPB management participated in preparation of large projects led by MU together with other institutes of the CAS in the Brno region (IAC, IPM, ISI) and with the support of the CAS management. The result of these efforts was the adoption and establishment of the CEITEC and ICRC research infrastructures, in which the IBP had access to the equipment, and based on mutual agreements, some equipment was located directly on the IBP premises. Some IBP employees have participated in the development of these large research infrastructures by working in shared laboratories during their working hours, in addition to their activities at the Institute. The results of this collaboration gave rise to a number of scientific publications with significant citation response.

The IBP was also supported by the CAS, when a "Laboratory of Cell Biophysics" was successfully equipped with a LEICA SP5 confocal microscope and a FACS ARIA II flow cytometer. The next step was the acquisition of a LEICA SP8 scanning confocal microscope with the possibility of using further techniques, such as FRAP, FRET and later FLIM. Additional laboratories equipped with CEITEC and ICRC equipment were built. At the end of the term of office in 2015-2016, a breeding facility for laboratory animals was built in the basement of the main building, with equipment for breeding genetically modified mice. During the term of office of S. Kozubek, a significant reconstruction of the entire Institute took place.

A fundamental change in the management of the Institute was the introduction of evaluation, which was based on bibliometrics (the process included a number of criteria from all areas of research, main criteria were based on the quality of publications and the share of IBP authors). An important outcome of the evaluation were changes in financing of laboratories and later departments of the Institute. The evaluation was supported also by the management of the CAS, led by prof. Václav Pačes.

In the following period (2007-2009) there was an economic crisis and the CAS was threatened by budget cuts of up to half the original amount, which posed a great existential risk. The management of the Institute, together with the management of the Academy of Sciences, took steps to avert this unfavorable situation (we intervened at the European Commission), which was ultimately successful. However, as a result of this crisis, the budget of the Academy of Sciences and the Institute was gradually reduced for many years. The Institute's strategy during this difficult period was based on evaluating and keeping the best teams that worked here. The original 16 teams were reduced to 10 larger departments. The responsibility for retaining quality employees in the individual departments lay with the heads of the departments, who, unlike other Institutes of the CAS, received a financial amount for research from institutional funds every year. The distribution of funds was based on the annual evaluation results. Another source of research funding was grant funds initially provided not only by the Czech Science Foundation, but also by the Ministry of Health or the internal agency of the CAS.

Later, specific funding was reduced and the CAS lost its grant agency. Insufficient institutional funding led to strong pressure to obtain grants (especially from the Czech Science Foundation), and this led to significant modifications to the research. Acquiring long-term projects was very problematic.

The environment in research in the Czech Republic in the period 2005-2017 was marked not only by the crisis, but also by an inappropriate methodology for evaluating research in the Czech Republic (based on bibliometrics and direct counting of points, and thus finances, for each result). The methodology was soon referred to as "coffee grinder" and was rejected by the CAS. The inadequacy of the methodology was that the top research results, which are most important for the development of society, could be interchanged for a larger number of average or even below-average results. As a result, research in the Czech Republic was partially degraded, however, the scientific work at the IBP remained at a good level. In the period 2005-2017, the IBP scientists maintained a good quality of research and thus the Institute of Biophysics has preserved its good reputation as a top research organization in the Czech Republic.