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Laboratory of Growth Regulators

Laboratory of Growth Regulators has been created in 1995 as a joint facility of the Faculty of Science, Palacký University (www.upol.cz) and the Institute of Experimental Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (www.ueb.cas.cz).

Research program of the laboratory is aimed primarily at small molecules that regulate cell division cycle, proliferation and growth of both plant and animal cells. Namely cytokinins and cytokinin-derived purine inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases belongs to the most intensively studied compounds. A representative of the latter, roscovitine (CYC202, seliciclib), is already undergoing phase II clinical trials as a novel anticancer drug by Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (under licence; for more information see actual Press Release).

Our multidisciplinary research team is composed of experienced plant physiologists and biochemists, as well as organic and analytical chemists. Many students are involved in the research during their undergraduate and postgraduate studies in botany, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry or medicinal biology.

Members of the laboratory give lectures in, for example, general botany, plant physiology, microbiology, chemistry, and molecular biology. Teaching includes practical courses and seminars in these subjects (rustreg.upol.cz/teaching.html).

The Laboratory of Growth Regulators guarantees the teaching for biological study programs, including newly established bachelor and magister courses of "Experimental Biology" (full description at study.upol.cz). Three-year bachelor studies of the programme "Biology" give basic information on biological fields, constituting a knowledge basis to be taken up in Master studies, i.e., general biology and genetics, molecular and cell biology, physiology, plant and animal system and ecology. After completing the bachelor study, the graduates can continue by studying professional biology, teaching biology or ecology at the university or other schools of similar orientation in the Czech Republic or abroad.

Several reseach projects are in progress in colaboration with international partners (University of Berlin, Germany; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden; University of Natal Pietermaritzburg, South Africa; Vienna Medical University, Austria).