Innovative Chemistry Award 2025 Recognizes Excellence within ACCELERATOR Research Environment

The Innovative Chemistry Group at CATRIN & IMTM, Palacký University Olomouc, has announced the recipients of the Innovative Chemistry Award 2025, highlighting outstanding scientific performance, innovation, and collaboration within the team.

The award is embedded within research activities supported by major European funding programmes, notably the ERA Chair ACCELERATOR project (Horizon Europe, GA No. 101087318) and the ERC Advanced Grant AMADEUS (GA No. 101098001). These initiatives enable advanced research at the interface of automated synthesis, high-throughput experimentation (HTE), and chemical biology, while strengthening international collaboration and researcher training.

The 2025 awardees are:

• 1st Prize: Thiago Pereira Moreira (postdoctoral researcher), for pioneering work on novel small-molecule PD-L1 and TNF-α antagonists with strong translational potential
• 2nd Prize: Zeinab Saedi and Atilio Romero (postdoctoral researchers), for key contributions to biophysical screening across multiple projects and the development of high-throughput workflows
• 3rd Prize: Riccardo Fusco (PhD candidate), for computational innovations supporting data-driven chemistry and accelerating design–make–test cycles

The award recognizes scientific originality, productivity, and collaborative engagement across research activities. It also reflects the group’s strong progress in 2025, including high-impact outputs, expanding research portfolios, and continued development of ERA Chair-driven activities in automated chemistry, DNA-encoded libraries, and direct-to-biology approaches.