Major Grant and Award for Tomas Fiala

Branco Weiss Fellow Tomas Fiala was awarded the Junior Star grant from the Czech Grant Agency (GAČR) with his project titled “Decoding Extracellular Protein–Protein Interactions with Synthetic Peptides”. The project aims to develop synthetic collagen peptides as molecular trimerizers, enabling Tom to study interactions between key proteins in the extracellular space. The Junior Star grant is the most prestigious starting grant for young PIs in Czechia. The Czech Grant Agency will support Tom’s group through this scheme with 1 M EUR over five years.

In addition, for his early contributions to the scientific community at Masaryk University and for obtaining multiple prestigious grants, Tom was awarded the MUNI Scientist Award 2025. The internal award aims to strengthen the motivation of excellent researchers across all disciplines by recognizing outstanding scientific results and important contributions to Masaryk University.

About the Junior Star program: https://gacr.cz/en/junior-star-projects/

This year’s Junior Star grantees (in Czech): https://gacr.cz/seznam-podporenych-projektu-od-roku-2026/

The MUNI Scientist Awardees 2025 are listed here: https://gamu.muni.cz/en/pro-vedce/award-for-outstanding-research-results/muni-scientist-awardees-2025