Our Former Student Nina Nováková Publishes Her First First-Author Paper

Nina Nováková joined our group as a bachelor’s student, and I had the pleasure of supervising both her bachelor’s and master’s theses. From her very first experiments, she worked on a fascinating soft-matter system: the formation and growth of myelin figures in decanol–sodium decanoate mixtures.

What started as a bachelor project gradually grew into a much broader study. During her master’s research, Nina investigated how salts and pH affect the formation, growth, and morphology of myelin figures, helping us better understand how surprisingly complex structures can emerge through self-assembly in a relatively simple chemical system.

And Nina was not only producing great results — she was also very successful in presenting them. Her work received several recognitions, including an honourable mention in the CRYTUR Award, the Best Poster Award at ALIFE 2024, and a Special Award at the Growing with Chemistry conference for her presentation “Biomimetic Behavior in Chemical Systems: Formation of Myelin Figures.” 🏆

Now, all this work has culminated in Nina’s first first-author paper, “Soft matter self-assembly: from droplets to myelin figures,” recently published in Surfaces and Interfaces. 🎉

I am especially happy that the project also opened the door to new collaborations. Together with Jan Macháček, and thanks to the EuroCurvoBioNet COST Network, we had the opportunity to collaborate with Jens Vinge Nygaard and Matan Mussel.

For me as a supervisor, it is incredibly rewarding to see the whole journey — from Nina’s first bachelor experiments, through her master’s thesis and conference awards, all the way to her first first-author publication.

And her scientific journey continues! Nina is now a PhD student in the group of Assoc. Prof. Viola Tokárová, working on “Eavesdropping in microscale – microencapsulation of microbiota and study of their cross-talk.” 🦠 (Btw. Nina is currently open to opportunities for research stays abroad. So, if you are looking for a talented, curious, and highly motivated young researcher to join your team for a research stay, don’t hesitate to reach out to her directly. I can wholeheartedly recommend her.)

Congratulations, Nina! I am very proud of you and very happy to see your work published. ❤️