Bioanalytical chemistry

More information about admission process for international applicants in general can be found here.

Date of the entrance exam
The applicants will receive information about the entrance exam by e-mail usually at least 10 days before the exam.
Please, always check your e-mails, including spam folders.

Conditions of admission
To be accepted, the candidate must obtain at least 120 points in the expert part and at least 60 points in the language part of the examination.
Successful applicants are informed of their acceptance by e-mail and subsequently receive an invitation to the enrolment.

Programme capacity
The capacity of a given programme is not fixed; students are admitted based on a decision by the Doctoral Board after assessing their aptitude for study and motivation.

The goal of study is the preparation of highly-qualified specialists for research work in the field of Bioanalytical Chemistry in academic and company environments including the accredited laboratories. The student will get necessary theoretical background and skills to realize his/her own research project in a research group under the guidance of a supervisor and be able to evaluate the obtained results. Modern instrumentation and experienced personnel at the Department of Biochemistry and at cooperating institutions create unique opportunities for student to be involved in numerous research activities concerning development of instrumental bioanalytical methods (separation methods with various types of detectors; biosensors combining different biological components with divergent detection principles) and immunochemistry and molecular biology based methods. Simultaneously, the student will be performing literature search using all resources of Masaryk University libraries. The research covers a wide spectrum of biological levels from whole organisms to tissues, cells and individual proteins. The palette of possibilities is broadened through long-term cooperation with several research institutions at home and abroad. Biochemistry is marked by its open and interdisciplinary character, the classical biochemical approaches being frequently combined with methodology from other disciplines such as microbiology, molecular biology, informatics, and biophysics. This increases graduates’ adaptability and their ability to apply acquired skills in working life. He/she will be ready to prepare the scientific presentations and publications using modern software tools.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• plan and suggest the solving of particular research task in the corresponding field by means of advance laboratory instrumentations
• develop and validate a new laboratory method
• obtain, archive, evaluate and correctly interpret and present the experimental data
• introduce, keep and checked of the Good laboratory practise rules in the laboratory
• lead of the research group, assign partial tasks to its members and check their realization
• apply the gained practical educational experience and pedagogical skills in real teaching assignment
• write and submit a competitive grant proposal to obtain funding either from the Grant Agency of Masaryk University or outside sources like JCMM, Czech Science Foundation
• be able to transfer the results of basic research to real practise in the company environment and have the basic manager skills
• establish and keep the contacts with the specialists in Czech Republic and abroad

Graduates of this doctoral degree program will be prepared for the work in the biochemical, pharmaceutical, medicinal and veterinary laboratories with the orientation both on the basic and applied research. They can work in the specialised accredited laboratories, that increase their possibilities of the perspective employment in Czech Republic and abroad.

They may continue their academic career at universities and research institutions both in the Czech Republic and abroad. They will be qualified for team member and leadership positions in scientific research and development at private firms and biochemical laboratories at a broad range of institutions specializing in human or veterinary medicine, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and biotechnology. The professional specialization of the graduates is also compatible with further work in the field of environmental protection and with environmental movements and initiatives.

Bioanalytical chemistry is dynamically developing field covering from biochemical, molecular biological and analytical approaches up the advanced experimental data evaluation. As many of the recent instrumentations and techniques are not available at the Department of Biochemistry, the students should during the doctoral studies spent some time at cooperating laboratories in Czech Republic or abroad. It should be taken as a form of practical training.

The thesis is a compulsory part of the education for doctoral studies the purpose of which is to demonstrate the students' ability to make an original contribution to the empirical or theoretical research. It can be written in Czech, Slovak or English language. It should contain new research findings which the student has uncovered independently or in cooperation with others and that were published or accepted for publication in internationally recognized scientific journal(s) with peer review.

The PhD student must be the first author of at least one publication. The publication with joint first authorship counts for one divided by the number of first authors (i.e., in case of two first authors it counts for 1/2 publication and so on). This means that one publication with co-first author is not enough to meet the first authorship requirement.

In the international content, the preferred version is a compilation thesis in English language including scientific articles published, accepted or prepared for publication. Minimal standards are three publications with following criteria:

- Minimally one publication in the journal with IF above the discipline median (according of ISI WOS)

- Minimally other publication in the journal with IF

- Minimally other manuscript prepared for publication

The compilation version should be based at a least on the three publications, it has to contain an introduction with the relevant references to the studied field followed by the corresponding publications with 2 – 3 pages commentary and conclusion. If the attached publications are the work of several authors, the student’s independent role in these must be proven by including a statement in which a student's contribution to each publication is defined and confirmed by the supervisor.

A monograph is typically 80-100 pages long (without counting the list of references) with standard formatting consistings of the parts Title page, Acknowledgement (optional), Abstract, Introduction, Literature review, Aims, Material and Methods , Results, Discussion, Conclusion and References, followed by a list of the student's papers and conference presentations. It does not contain the copies of the papers which are delivered separately by the student.