Laboratory of Regulatory RNA

Mgr. Jarmila Hnilicová, PhD.

jarmila.hnilicova@natur.cuni.cz

Jarmila completed her PhD in alternative splicing, but then shifted to studying bacterial protein-RNA complexes and began her postdoc in Libor Krásný’s lab. For a couple of years, she has had independent funding and projects, and as a result, she decided to establish her own group at the Faculty of Science.

FULL CV

Mgr. Jitka Jirát Matějčková, PhD.

jitka.matejckova@natur.cuni.cz

Jitka is a postdoc, but also a very talented lab manager without whom the lab would never have been running. Thanks to Jitka’s organizational skills, we were able to start work immediately after we moved. Whatever practical problems in the lab you have, she will solve them. She is experienced in both in vivo and in vitro methods and often helps students with their experiments.

Mgr. Viola Vaňková Hausnerová, PhD.

viola.hausnerova@natur.cuni.cz

Violka, our postdoc, is practically the experiment whisperer. She’s the only one we know who can make every experiment work on the first try. RIP-seq? ChIP-seq? No problem. And now she’s back from her maternity leave, ready to conquer even more mind-blowing methods and projects.

Ing. Silvia Neva

nevas@natur.cuni.cz

Silvie began her PhD in our lab in 2023. She is from Italy but completed her master’s degree at the University of Chemical Technology in Prague. Silvia’s project focuses on transcription regulation in various actinobacteria, including Corynebacterium glutamicum. Silvie is totally into actinobacteria and she’s a master at cultivating all sorts of funky strains.

Eliška Mikesková

Eliška is our undergraduate student, who really helped us with experiments involving CoRP RNA and is a co-author of our RIP-seq paper. Eliška defended her Bachelor‘s thesis and will focus on protein–RNA interactions in mycobacteria for her Master’s thesis.

Lucie Zahradníčková

Lucka has successfully defended her Bachelor‘s thesis focused on plasmids in wild-type mycobacteria and will continue with her Master’s thesis in our lab. She will focus on dormancy and VBNC (Viable But Non-Culturable) states in mycobacteria.

Martina Pazourová

Martina is our new Master’s student, diving into the world of regulatory RNAs that interact with RNA polymerase in various bacterial species.

Otakar Vacín

Ota is a Bachelor’s student bravely diving into his very first lab experiments — fingers crossed!

Former members of the lab

Mahmoud Shoman did his PhD in 2020-2024. He discovered a new bacterial transcription factor and came up with a name for it – CrsL. In addition to being a highly enthusiastic and outstanding PhD student, he has mad skills in design too. He’s the mastermind behind all those beautiful schemes, snazzy graphics in our papers, and even advertisements for new PhD student positions! Mahmoud is currently in Dr. Yap lab in Chicago.

Alice Armellini was Erasmus student from the University of Parma who worked on her Master‘s thesis from February 2024 to August 2024 in our lab. Alice performed many experiments and identified several proteins that regulate mycobacterial RNA polymerase expression.

Jeevitha Chithra Madhesh was working on her PhD thesis from November 2024 to March 2025, after which she returned to her home country for personal reasons.

Matilde Botelho was our great Erasmus student for the winter term 2024 who helped us a lot with gene expression experiments.

Aina Codina Capdevila worked on her Master’s thesis from February to June 2025 and successfully defended it in July 2025 at her home university in Barcelona, receiving a grade of 9 out of 10. Big congratulations from all of us!

Adam Hoško was our Bachelor student working on heat shock proteins in bacteria. He defended his thesis in June 2025 and is now off to study medicine — swapping Petri dishes for patients.