I trust people and give them autonomy, says Michaela Wimmerová, describing her management style at the National Centre for Biomolecular Research, SCI MUNI

What does it mean to delve into the intricate world of molecular phenomena? How does adhesion therapy play a crucial role in the field of glycobiochemistry? And what are the key principles guiding her leadership at the National Centre for Biomolecular Research? We sat down with Michaela Wimmerová, Director of the Centre, to uncover these insights and more.

Michaela’s scientific work initially focused on plant and microbial enzymes, along with biosensors and their clinical and industrial applications. A foreign stay at the CERMAV Institute of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 2001/2002 redirected her interests toward the field of Glycobiochemistry, which was not well known in the Czech Republic. Since then, her research work has focused on structure-function studies of proteins involved in the synthesis of unusual carbohydrate structures (glycosyltransferases) and their specific recognition (lectins). The first group is represented for example by enzymes of the pathogenic bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which are involved in the synthesis of the mycobacterial cell wall. As human’s are not equipped to cleave the structures of the wall, intact bacteria can resist the natural intervention of human defence mechanisms. The second group of proteins is primarily represented by lectins, which can be involved in the primary recognition of host cells by pathogens, their adhesion, and/or stabilization of the biofilm, which allow the bacteria to resist elimination and interference from outside. A distinctive feature of the Glycobiochemistry group’s scientific work is the wide range of methodologies used in the study of target systems.

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How did your relationship with the natural sciences start? What did you enjoy at school?

I've always enjoyed technical subjects and natural sciences, maths and physics, and then descriptive geometry in high school—anything that makes you think. I originally wanted to follow in the footsteps of my mother, who was an accountant, but I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to go to high school because I really didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. There I took part in the Chemistry Olympiad, Mathematics Olympiad and Students` Professional Activities (SPA). I was also in a sports class and played basketball.

How did you choose the subject of your university studies?

I could just have easily studied chemistry, maths or physics; however, my example shows how good high school teachers can guide undecided students. That I ended up in biochemistry is due to the personality of the excellent teacher of chemistry, Libor Mikulenka, at the grammar school in Krnov, thanks to whom I began to focus more towards chemistry. And, we had an older classmate who studied biochemistry in Brno, which impressed me, and biochemistry became my first choice. I thought to myself, I find chemistry interesting, and I find living things interesting too… and so I ended up at the National Centre for Biomolecular Research (NCBR).

How do you remember the early years of your studies at our faculty?

Two other girls and I were admitted to the biochemistry program from the same high school class, with one of them I had played basketball in the junior league. In Brno, we were accepted into the ‘Moravská Slávie’ club. As I jokingly say, I sat for two years in the first league for Morenda. We had two-phase trainings, we just studied and played sports. But then I've started to get more focused on science, took part in Student Scientific and Professional Activities—I even made it into the national round.

How did you start studying enzymes?

I worked as an assistant researcher at the Department of Biochemistry. There, I got into the group of very nice people, such was professor Zdeněk Glatz and associate professor Oldřich Janiczek (at that time, both assistant professors). They gave me a real enthusiasm for scientific work. As early as my second year, under the guidance of Olda Janiczek, I had started to prepare my first enzyme, with which I competed in the mentioned Student Scientific and Professional Activities.

What do you remember about your trip to the National Centre for Scientific Research, CERMAV in Grenoble?

I finished my studies at the faculty two years after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, and suddenly, new opportunities began to open. In 2001, I went to France for a one-year stay, and there I ‘found’ my scientific topic, glycobiochemistry, which not many people in the Czech Republic were studying. We were particularly interested in common bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia cenocepacia, which are both bacterial opportunistic pathogens. If a person has a healthy immune system, these won’t bother them at all; however, it will be a different story for people with compromised immunity, or groups with much more complicated problems, such as those with cystic fibrosis, who have a defect in a gene coding the chloride channel that changes mucus density in their lungs or digestive tract. These people die from ‘banal’ infections caused by opportunistic pathogens. We have now identified the proteins involved in the primary attachment of these pathogens to host tissue, and these can be inhibited, thus mitigating any subsequent infection.

What does your research group do in the field of glycobiochemistry?

My Glycobiochemistry research group focuses on proteins that recognize carbohydrates, known as lectins, which are primarily involved in host-pathogen interactions. Since all cells are covered with various types of branched carbohydrates, these carbohydrates play a very important role in many physiological processes and signalling. They are often the primary targets of pathogens—many bacteria and microorganisms recognize oligosaccharides on the surface of host cells, and this is where the first step of infection begins. If we understand how bacteria or pathogens in general bind to host tissue, we can develop molecules that block these interactions. These molecules can prevent adhesion and complicate the entire infection process, making it less likely to proceed easily.

What is the essence and applicability of this ‘anti-adhesive therapy’?

In short, we prevent pathogens from binding to the host tissue and enable or simplify the elimination of pathogens from the body. As we know, antibiotic resistance is continually increasing. Pathogens must fight and mutate to adapt to antibiotics that threaten their survival. However, blocking their adhesion is not a life-threatening step for bacteria. Therefore, it is expected that anti-adhesives can help the body in this fight. They do not destroy the pathogen but allow, for example, the body's natural cleansing mechanisms to release the pathogen. A typical example is urinary tract infections. We all know urinal with added mannose, a carbohydrate also found on the surface of our cells. Under normal circumstances, the bacteria Escherichia coli bind to cells in the urinary tract and trigger an infection. By adding mannose, you block their interaction with the cells, and—simply put—the urine has an easier way to flush the bacteria out of the urinary tract. That, in simple terms, is the essence of anti-adhesive therapy.

What do you remember of Professor Jaroslav Koča, the founding director of the NCBR?

I believe that without Professor Koča, the centre would never have been established. There would probably exist some structural biology laboratory where people from various scientific fields would work, but likely no separate faculty institute would have been created. NCBR is the youngest institute at SCI MUNI (not considering the reorganization of departments in 2010). It was established in 2001 as a centre of scientific excellence, and its primary goal was to ensure top-level science and educate doctoral students, as detailed in the chapter of the book History Written by Scientists (only in Czech, Ed. Note). These are the topics we are attempting to develop further. We remain the institute with the largest number of doctoral students at SCI MUNI.

The NCBR shares state-of-the-art scientific infrastructure with the CEITEC MUNI research institute. How did this come about?

In 2001, with the help of external funding, we were able to build the best nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy centre in Central Europe. We also had, and have, very strong computational methodologies. The emphasis at NCBR has always been on building state-of-the-art infrastructure, which we continue to develop. Since 2011, of course, development has progressed in close cooperation with CEITEC MUNI, whose establishment brought unprecedented investment to the whole university from structural funds. Gradually, institute-accredited study programmes (at that time disciplines) were developed that focused on the areas we are primarily involved in, i.e. biomolecular chemistry and bioinformatics. Later, the Laboratory of Functional Genomics and Proteomics was added, under the leadership of Professor Jiří Fajkus, and the methodology portfolio was expanded to include these topics.

Could you provide a brief overview of the structural biology studies conducted at the NCBR?

We approach the principles of structural biology through the molecular level. Using various methods, we can study the genome, for example. We can prepare specific proteins in the laboratory, solve their three-dimensional structure, and thus know what they look like. We can then examine their properties and functions. We try to understand what their binding site looks like, and in the case of our lectins, we can describe how the proteins bind to the corresponding carbohydrates. We aim to define molecular interactions and similar phenomena. This requires a very broad spectrum of different techniques and approaches, which allow us to study these phenomena at the molecular level.

As the Director of the NCBR, what do you consider most important in your interactions and collaborations with the people you work with?

I became Director of NCBR in 2022, when I took over leadership of the institution following the death of Professor Koča, and my aim has been to carry on his vision. My personal ambition is to make sure our students and staff feel comfortable. Furthermore, I want to ensure that the Centre’s activities are visible externally. For example, we take part in the Night of Scientists and the Festival of Science, and I am glad that our people take part in such popularisation activities through their own enthusiasm and not because of any command from above. I try to ensure equal access to everyone; I don't like discrimination, whether positive or negative. I see the type of people who work here as a group formed through natural evolution and selection. I trust they know what to do and give them the freedom they need to do it. We don't have fixed working hours, which allows everyone to organise their time, to take turns with the children and to come in for an afternoon or a morning when needed. Similarly, I am open to change when staff need shorter or longer hours. Everyone should be able to evaluate what they can do and under what conditions.

I have had many mothers in my research group, and while some have returned to science others have moved on into organisational/administrative or technical work, and they are satisfied. We have also been successful in the GAMU Career Restart Programme. For me personally, it is important to support any measure that allows our staff to return to work at the department.

The NCBR and CEITEC MUNI are connected both historically and personally. How do you complement each other?

My vision is to show that, as institutions, the NCBR and CEITEC MUNI can complement each other and cooperate well. I also feel that we are also very much in line with the new leadership of CEITEC MUNI. The department and many NCBR employees were all heavily involved in the establishment of CEITEC MUNI, and even today the institutions are very closely linked in terms of personnel. We cannot separate the functioning of CEITEC MUNI and the NCBR, whether in terms of infrastructure, people or students. I would also like us to be seen as an institution that enables the career development to quality researchers, who, by the nature of the institution's settings, cannot further grow professionally at CEITEC. We have considerably more freedom in how we can help individual researchers to develop their independence. They can grow in their academic career with us as our work includes educational activities in bioinformatics, biomolecular chemistry, genomics and proteomics. We also have our own undergraduate and graduate degree specialisations, including a newly accredited inter-faculty bioinformatics programme with the Faculty of Computer Science (web available only in Czech language, in Czech, Ed. Note), and we are responsible for three PhD programmes, and a fourth in Experimental Plant Biology in collaboration with the Department of Experimental Biology SCI MUNI is currently under evaluation.

You are supervisor of the prestigious PhD programme in Life Sciences; why is this programme so popular?

Our Life Sciences PhD programme operates thanks to close cooperation between the NCBR and CEITEC MUNI, which allows CEITEC MUNI researchers to supervise PhD students, almost 50% of whom are from abroad. Since the beginning of the programme in 2014, our students have received special treatment, such as a guaranteed minimum income of 22,000 CZK compared to the 12,000 CZK stipend that was typical at that time. Students also receive training in soft skills. In addition, the students have an individualised advisory body, the Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC), which I see as a great positive. When we first put this idea into practice, it was received reluctantly as many students and supervisors considered the TAC to be an additional bureaucratic burden. After a few years, even those supervisors who were initially skeptical began to recognize that collaboration with the TAC and its meetings could be a valuable and important tool for monitoring studies. The TAC, composed of external scientists familiar with the particular scientific topic and challenges faced by a student, provides an objective perspective. This allows them to advise on which activities to prioritize, identify potential dead ends, and suggest alternative approaches that might not be immediately apparent to the student's supervisor. An outside perspective can bring new insights to all parties involved.

Where do graduates from the NCBR doctoral programs typically pursue their careers?

We see them in the sciences, in business and managerial positions; they continue at other scientific institutions or going to companies, and some devote themselves to their families. Many of them find a post-doctoral position abroad, which then opens the possibility to establish themselves as independent research group leaders. One of my students got a position as a post-doctorate researcher in a cutting-edge group at the University of Massachusetts, where he learnt new scientific topics and gained expertise in the cryo-electron microscopy, after which he was hired as an independent group leader at CEITEC MUNI. When I see the alumni of my group, I see that mainly women tend not to return to science per se after maternity leave but often to administrative or management positions, where they are still in contact with science. I think that male and female students get a pretty good grounding at many levels here, allowing them to direct their future professional life in whatever way suits them.

Do you also offer courses that introduce students to how the scientific world works, the principles of science funding, and so on?

Yes, we try hard to include a range of soft skill subjects in their education, such that they develop scientific skills beyond their specific research focus. They learn how to present their results, how to write a scientific publication, how to participate in teaching and so on. All our groups have regular group meetings conducted in English, where students regularly give presentations, present progress on their dissertation projects and discuss their results. It's not just about learning to do cutting-edge science with us, they also need to be able to sell it.

Thank you for the interview.
Zuzana Jayasundera
Translation: Kevin Frances Roche