Curriculum Vitae

Personal data:

Surname: Janecek

First name: Stefan

Academic degrees: M.Sc. (1989), Ph.D. (1993), DrSc. (2002)

Year of birth: 1966

Nationality: Slovakian

Education and activities:

- 1984: Leaving examination in chemistry;

- 1984-1989: Undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Chemical Technology, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia. Main examinations passed: mathematics, physics, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology;

- 1989: Diploma thesis at the Department of Biochemical Technology, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia. Thesis entitled: “Chemical Stabilisation of Amylases for Use in the Food-stuff Industry”. Final Examination; M.Sc. degree;

- 1989-1992: Ph.D. studies at the Department of Biochemical Technology, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia. Theme: “Enzyme Stabilisation”;

- September 1993: Ph.D. Thesis entitled: “Analysis of Amino Acid Sequences of (a/b)₈-Barrel Enzymes from the Evolutionary and Structure-Stability Points of View”; Ph.D. degree;

- January 1996: One-month stay at the Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolecules Vegetales (CERMAV), CNRS, Grenoble, France, under the supervising by Dr. Bernard Henrissat, supported by the FEBS Short-Term Fellowship;

- 1997: Prize of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the category of young research fellows;

- January/February 2000: Six-weeks stay at Department of Chemistry, Carlsberg Laboratory, Copenhagen Valby, under the supervising by Prof. Birte Svensson, supported by the FEBS Short-Term Fellowship;

- November 2001: DrSc. Thesis entitled: “Alpha-Amylase Family: Sequences, Structures, Specificities and Evolution”; DrSc. degree (February 2002);

- July/August 2002: Four-weeks stay at Department of Chemistry, Carlsberg Laboratory, Copenhagen Valby, under the supervising by Prof. Birte Svensson, supported by the EMBO Short-Term Fellowship;

Organising work:

Founder and main organiser of the international symposia on the alpha-amylase enzyme family - ALAMYs (http://imb.savba.sk/~janecek/Alamys/):

ALAMY_1, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia, 30 SEP-4 OCT, 2001; http://imb.savba.sk/~janecek/Alamys/alamy_1;

ALAMY_2, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia, 3-7 OCT, 2004; http://imb.savba.sk/~janecek/Alamys/alamy_2;

ALAMY_3, Smolenice Castle, Slovakia, 23-27 SEP, 2007; http://imb.savba.sk/~janecek/Alamys/alamy_3.

Present position:

I am a research scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia. I am most interested in the enzymes and proteins from the a-amylase family - the clan GH-H of glycoside hydrolases (almost 30 different enzyme specificities), especially in their evolution as well as their structure-function and structure-stability relationships. Since all the members of the a-amylase family adopt the structure of the parallel TIM-barrel domain, my interests are focused also on the entire family of TIM-barrel proteins. In a wider sense, I am interested in the relationships revealed by studying the protein evolution and the taxonomic relationships among different organisms (Bacteria, Archaea and Eucarya).

Editorial work:

Biologia (http://www.springer.com/11756/) - Managing Editor, section Cellular and Molecular Biology;

Biochemical Journal (http://www.biochemj.org) - member of the Editorial Advisory Panel;

Journal of Applied Glycoscience (http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/jsag/index_e.html) - member of the Editorial Board.

Publications and citations:

More than 50 publications in the journals indexed in Current Contents (e.g. Biochemical Journal, Bioinformatics, Biologia, Carbohydrate Research, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, European Journal of Biochemistry, FEBS Journal, FEBS Letters, FEMS Microbiology Letters, Gene, Journal of Molecular Evolution, Microbiology, Protein Science, Protein Engineering) with more than 800 citations according to Science Citation Index Expanded.

Bratislava, Slovakia; January 2009