The Parc awarded very special prices to the best students. Denisa Lizoňová received The Student Choice Award and The Expert Choice Award went to Vojtěch Klimša. Besides the original prices designed by Marathon Studio, both winning students have the option to attend a scientific conference of their choice with all the expenses covered by Zentiva.
On Thursday, January 16, we awarded the winners of The Parc Awards. The awards are presented annually to the best students based on student and supervisors evaluations at The Parc symposia through the whole year. Denisa Lizoňová received The Student Choice Award for excellent work on „Modified liposomes for targeted drug delivery“ and Vojtěch Klimša was awarded the Expert Choice Award for brilliant engineering on „High throughput screening of spray-dried formulations“. Both awards are sponsored by Zentiva and the prizes include a fully covered participation in a scientific conference of the winner's choice.
Here is our winners had to say after the ceremony.
What is your work about?
My work focuses on the development of innovative drug formulations employing nanoparticles and other drug carriers, whose utilization is mostly cancer theranostics (therapy and diagnostics).
What do you like most about your research?
Most of all I love the creativity and freedom scientific research gives me. For me it’s not about having to work, it feels more like discovering a secret or solving a riddle. There is no stereotype, I can organize my work as I want, so it’s almost like a pleasant free-time activity.
What does this award mean for you?
I appreciate it a lot, I’m aware that my prize was awarded based on us, students evaluating each other, so for me it’s a signal, that the way I present my work and analyze my results is received well and that others consider my work to be of good quality, which is something I was aiming for.
What is your work about?
Since solubility of the active pharmaceutical ingredients is a big problem nowadays it is necessary to employ different techniques to improve it. One way to overcome poor solubility is to make the solution supersaturated. That can be done and maintained with amorphous solid dispersions. I am working on a technical solution that allows for faster and more systematic identification of the appropriate composition of the amorphous solid dispersions so that the final drug product can be cheaper, faster and in some cases safer to develop.
What do you like most about your research?
It’s a nice engineering topic. Designing a complex mechatronic system, manufacturing the parts, seeing it grow and come to life right in front of me is really satisfying. Also, it helps me educate myself in areas I wasn’t familiar with and I enjoy a high degree of freedom in pursuing what interests me.
What does this award mean for you?
It feels really good when a broad audience of experts in the field understands and appreciates the work you’re doing especially when the level of the other projects was as high as it was. So primarily a sense of validation, secondarily the prize is to go to any conference of my choosing which is awesome!
Since the motto of our Multidisciplinary Platform is “Life meets science in The Parc”, the unique branch trophies designed by Marathon Studio were carefully selected from the Czech parks. The award inscription and The Parc logo were laser engraved and finally, the branches were impregnated with natural beeswax.
April 20. 2020