We are excited to introduce another keynote speaker for the Czech Annual Cancer Research Meeting 2024: Prof. Jindřich Kopeček from Center for Controlled Chemical Delivery, University of Utah and Departments of Molecular Pharmaceutics and of Biomedical Engineering, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He will be presenting his groundbreaking work on Drug-Free Macromolecular Therapeutics.
Biography
Jindřich Henry Kopeček, received his Ph.D. in Macromolecular Chemistry from the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry and D.Sc. in Chemistry from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. His postdoctoral studies were done at the National Research Council of Canada. Before joining the University of Utah in 1986 Kopeček served as Principal Investigator and Laboratory Head in the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering and Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Utah. He served as President of the Controlled Release Society (1995-1996), Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry (1999-2004), Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Drug Carriers in Medicine and Biology (2004), and Chair of the Biomaterials and Interfaces Study Section at the National Institutes of Health (2003-2006). Prof. Kopeček serves on Editorial Boards of 14 international scientific journals. His awards include the Founders Award of the Controlled Release Society (1999), Millennial Pharmaceutical Scientist Award (2000), Paul Dawson Biotechnology Award (2001), Distinguished International Scientist Award of the Japanese Biomaterials Society (2006), Honorary Professorship, Sichuan University, China (2007), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Journal of Drug Targeting (2011), Doctor of Philosophy Honoris Causa degree from the University of Helsinki, Finland (2014), and T. & A. Higuchi Memorial Lectureship Award, Academy of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Japan (2018). Kopeček is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering (2011). His research interests are focused on biorecognition of macromolecules, bioconjugate chemistry, drug delivery systems, self-assembled biomaterials, and drug-free macromolecular therapeutics. Hydrogels from his laboratory have been in clinical use and HPMA copolymer - anticancer drug conjugates in clinical trials. Kopeček is a coauthor of more than 430 scientific papers; his Hirsch index is 91 and his publications have been cited 28,651 times (Google Scholar 04/29/2018).
