People
The group welcomes international postdocs and PhD students. The working language is English with all possible accents you can think of.
Associate Professor
My research focuses on bloodsucking insects, their bacterial symbionts, and transmitted pathogens/parasites. Primarily, our projects target kissing bugs (Triatominae), Chagas disease, and the role of the host microbiome within the context of the insect-pathogen relationship. I also study animal-microbe symbioses in mosquitoes, chewing and sucking lice, and other ectoparasites.
At the Faculty of Science, USB, I serve as the Program Director for Phd Studies in Parasitology and I teach Molecular Phylogenetics (KPA604) and Microbial Ecology and Genomics (KPA172).
At the Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, I work as a part-time researcher with Jan Stefka's group.
Jana Martinů, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Population genomics and metagenomics of lice and triatomines
janamartinu84@gmail.com
Hassan Tarabai, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Associate
Triatominae symbiosis
hassantarabai@gmail.com
Jana Říhová, MSc.
Postdoctoral Associate
Evolution of symbiosis in sucking lice and keds (co-supervised by Václav Hypša)
rihovj02@prf.jcu.cz
Tanisha Moons, MSc.
Doctoral Associate
Triatominae microbiome development
tanisha.moons@gmail.com
Insan Habib, MSc.
Doctoral Associate
Host-microbiome interface
habibi00@prf.jcu.cz
Jitka Kocková, MSc.
Technician
Jitka is our MiSeq caretaker
jitka.kockova@gmail.com
Jan Zima Jr., Ph.D.
Lab Manager
Running smoothly our circus
panz@centrum.cz
Undergraduates
Hana Vargová (master thesis in progress)
Damián Dedecius (master thesis in progress)
Natália Filová, MSc. (graduated 2023)
Alexandra Kogler, Bc. (graduated 2021)
Kateřina Žižková, MSc. (graduated 2021)
Simona Křepelková, MSc. (graduated 2021)
Veronika Škochová, MSc. (graduated 2020)
Eliška Juhaňáková, MSc. (graduated 2020)
Collaborators
Prof. Václav Hypša (University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science, Czech Republic)
Dr. Kevin Vogel (University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA)
Dr. Norman Beatty (University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA)
Dr. Walter Roachel (US Army Public Health Command Region – South, Texas, USA)
Prof. Jessica Light (Texas A&M University, TX, USA)
Dr. Hannes Schuler (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy)
Dr. Ondřej Balvín (Czech University of Life Sciences Prague)