Jan Tkac received his Ph.D. degree in biotechnology at the Slovak University of Technology (Bratislava, Slovakia) in 2000. He has done few postdoctoral appointment at Linkoping University (monitoring of expression of recombinant proteins by optical techniques), at Lund University (interfacial electron transfer of various redox proteins), and at Oxford University (a new platform of protein recognition by peptide aptamers). Currently, he works at the Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. His main research activities cover catalytic biosensors and biofuel cells, lectin-based affinity biosensors, glycan biochips and biosensors, nanoscale surface patterning protocols and label-free platforms of detection. He has published 50+ scientific articles, reviews, and chapters with current Hirsch index h=19 (Thomson Reuters).

Selected publications prior ERC Starting grant:

Davis JJ, Tkac J, Laurenson S, Ko Ferrigno P: Peptide aptamers in label-free protein detection: 1. Characterization of the immobilized scaffold, Analytical Chemistry 79, 1089-1096, 2007.

Davis JJ, Tkac J, Humphreys R, Buxton AT, Lee TA, Ferrigno PK: Peptide aptamers in label-free protein detection: 2. Chemical optimization and detection of distinct protein isoforms, Analytical Chemistry 81, 3314-3320, 2009.

Gemeiner P, Mislovičová D, Tkáč J, Švitel J, Pätoprstý V, Hrabárová E, Kogan G, Kožár T: Lectinomics. II. A highway to biomedical/clinical diagnostics, Biotechnology Advances 27, 1-15, 2009.

Tkac J, Davis JJ: Label-free field effect protein sensing. In Engineering the Bioelectronic Interface: Applications to Analyte Biosensing and Protein Detection Davis, JJ (Ed.); Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, 2009.

Katrlík J, Švitel J, Gemeiner P, Kožár T, Tkac J: Glycan and lectin microarrays for glycomics and medicinal applications, Medicinal Research Reviews 30, 394-418, 2010.