Michal Hocek (born 11 December 1969 in

Benešov Benešov (; german: Beneschau; also known as Benešov u Prahy) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 16,000 inhabitants. The town is known for the Konopiště Castle. Administrative parts Villages of Baba, ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

) is a Czech chemist. He is a group leader at the

Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (shortened as IOCB Prague) is a research institute under the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). The institute centers around research in the fields of organic chemist ...

of the

Czech Academy of Sciences The Czech Academy of Sciences (abbr. CAS, cs, Akademie věd České republiky, abbr. AV ČR) was established in 1992 by the Czech National Council as the Czech successor of the former Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and its tradition goes bac ...

and a professor of

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clay ...

Charles University ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , underg ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. He specializes in the chemistry and chemical biology of

nucleosides Nucleosides are glycosylamines that can be thought of as nucleotides without a phosphate group. A nucleoside consists simply of a nucleobase (also termed a nitrogenous base) and a five-carbon sugar (ribose or 2'-deoxyribose) whereas a nucleotid ...

nucleotides Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules wi ...

, and

nucleic acids Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...

Career

Education and early career

Michal Hocek studied at the former Prague Institute of Chemical Technology (now

University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague The University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague (UCT Prague; cs, Vysoká škola chemicko-technologická v Praze, VŠCHT Praha) is the largest university specializing in chemistry in the Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply C ...

or UCT, Prague) under the supervision of Josef Kuthan. In 1993, he graduated with an MSc degree specializing in organic and medicinal chemistry. He enrolled in a PhD program at the

of the

(IOCB Prague) under the tutelage of Dr.

Antonín Holý Antonín Holý (1 September 1936 – 16 July 2012) was a pioneering Czech scientist. He specialised in the field of chemistry and cooperated on the development of important antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B. He w ...

, completing his studies in 1996. In 1997, Hocek performed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship under the guidance of Léon Ghosez at the

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

(

Louvain-la-Neuve Louvain-la-Neuve (, French for ''New Leuven''; wa, Li Noû Lovén) is a planned town in the municipality of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Wallonia, Belgium, situated 30 km southeast of Brussels, in the province of Walloon Brabant. The town w ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

). He returned to the IOCB and Holý's laboratory, where he worked as a staff scientist for five years from 1998 to 2002. In 2002, Hocek was promoted to group leader of the Group of Modified Nucleobases at the IOCB. From 2004 to 2006, he served as the head of the Department of Organic Synthesis for Biomedicinal Applications at the IOCB. In 2006, he completed a

Doctor of Science degree Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

(DSc) at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic at UCT Prague. In the same year, he served as an associate professor at UCT Prague.

2007 onward

In 2007, Hocek was promoted to the Head of Research Team at the IOCB, thus beginning his independent research career. From 2011 to 2014, he served as an associate professor in the Department of Organic and Nuclear Chemistry at

in Prague. He became a full professor in 2014. Hocek has been an editor for several academic journals. From 1998 to 2011, he served as editor-in-chief of the Collection of the Czechoslovak Chemical Communications, and from 2011, he has served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journals ''ChemPlusChem'' and ''ChemBioChem''. In 2013, he was named an F1000 faculty member for chemical biology. He is a currently a member of the Czech Chemical Society, the American Chemical Society, and the International Society for Nucleosides, Nucleotides, and Nucleic Acids. In September 2016, Hocek was featured on ''Hyde Park Civilizace'', a Czech television show featuring prominent Czech and international scientists. As of February 2021, he has produced over 250 publications and numerous patents. His research articles have garnered over 7500 citations, and he has achieved an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

of 45.

Research achievements

Hocek and his group have contributed significantly to

and

medicinal chemistry Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with designing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, synthesis and developme ...

by developing methods to synthesize modified nucleobases, nucleosides, nucleotides, and nucleic acids through

cross-coupling In organic chemistry, a cross-coupling reaction is a reaction where two fragments are joined together with the aid of a metal catalyst. In one important reaction type, a main group organometallic compound of the type R-M (R = organic fragment, ...

reactions and C-H activation. They discovered several novel classes of cytostatic agents with

nanomolar Molar concentration (also called molarity, amount concentration or substance concentration) is a measure of the concentration of a chemical species, in particular of a solute in a solution, in terms of amount of substance per unit volume of solut ...

antitumor Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy (including immunotherapy such as monoclonal antibody therapy) and synthetic lethality, most commonly as a series of separate treatments (e.g. ...

activities based on substituted or fused deazapurine nucleosides. In the field of chemical biology, Hocek and his laboratories have developed a simple two-step synthesis of base-modified DNA through cross-coupling reactions of 2'-deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs) followed by polymerase incorporation. They have discovered some modified dNTPs that are better substrates for polymerases than natural nucleotides. The methodology is widely used for enzymatic synthesis of DNA or

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...

-bearing

fluorescent Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, th ...

redox Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate (chemistry), substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of Electron, electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction ...

, or reactive labels, as well as for modulation of

transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...

Awards and recognition

* 1999: Alfred Bader Prize for Organic Chemistry from the Czech Chemical Society * 2004: Otto Wichterle Premium for Younger Scientists * 2004: Prize of the Academy of Sciences for Younger Scientists * Since 2008: Chairman of the Symposium on the Chemistry of Nucleic Acid Components * 2015: Praemium Academia from the Czech Academy of Sciences * 2015: Fellow of ChemPubSoc Europe * 2017: Elected member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic * 2019: Rudolf Lukes Prize of the Czech Chemical Society

References

External links

Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hocek, Michal 1969 births Living people 20th-century chemists 21st-century chemists Academic staff of Charles University Czech Academy of Sciences Czech chemists People from Benešov Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS