From DANDRITE to CEITEC: Alena Salašová to launch her own research group

Every April in the Czech Republic, the peach and apricot trees come into bloom. For most people, it is simply another sign that spring has arrived. For Alena Salasova's family, however, throughout her childhood it marked the return of a long-standing tradition.

Every year, Alena's father, a plant physiologist, would eagerly ask his daughter whether she could tell the difference between the two trees. 

"And I would make a mistake. My father could not understand it because to him it was so clear what they were," Alena recalls.

"I can never recognise any plants, and in my family that's a disaster," she adds. "Both my parents and my brother work in botany. I'm the one who still doesn't know what plants I have. I just don't remember things like that. I have logical thinking, but my brain works differently."

Even so, the apricot did not fall that far from the peach tree.

While botany never became Alena’s calling, another branch of science certainly did. By the age of 14, she already knew that she wanted to become either a neurosurgeon or a neuroscientist, and over time, the choice became clear.

"I just felt that science was more fun. I love trying to understand things you cannot see. I've always had that,” she says, adding that determination also runs in the family.

“And both my parents are academics, and they are both group leaders. My mum, who is a landscape architect, was the first woman on so many levels in her workplace. So quitting was never an option."

That determination combined with a fascination for the unseen workings of biology has now brought Alena to the next stage of her career.

Having already laid the foundations for her research programme at DANDRITE and PROMEMO through a Lundbeck Experimental Grant, Alena has now secured two major grants (the CEITEC Installation Package and the MUNI Award in Science and Humanities) that will allow her to establish her own independent research group at CEITEC in Brno, Czech Republic, from January 2027.

Understanding the earliest stages of brain development

Alena's research begins long before the first symptoms of disease appear – even before birth. Her aim is to understand how the earliest stages of brain development shape health decades later.

Her research focuses on how neurons and supporting glial cells establish their identity, connect into functional brain circuits and develop during embryonic life. She is particularly interested in how disruptions to these early developmental processes may increase the risk of disorders such as ADHD and Parkinson's disease decades later.

Understanding those earliest stages of brain development, she believes, is also the key to developing better treatments.

"I think we just lack the tools to recover the brain. That's what regenerative medicine is aiming for. If we can understand what is happening, we will be able to develop better drugs that target only the underlying problem in the brain instead of affecting overall neurotransmission. It is important to understand how the healthy brain develops in order to identify what goes wrong."

One of the proteins at the centre of her research is alpha-synuclein, a protein strongly linked to Parkinson's disease. While most researchers study its role in the ageing brain, Alena wants to understand what it does much earlier in life.

"Everyone studies it because Parkinson's is an ageing disease. But it's also expressed during embryonic development, and almost nobody looks at that. I think that's wrong."

She is also interested in how genetic risk factors influence the developing brain long before symptoms emerge.

“I want to study certain risk genes during embryogenesis, look at how they function, how they signal in the cells, and whether they affect psychiatric symptoms.”

Following the science

For Alena, becoming a principal investigator was never the goal in itself.

"I've always done what I love, and I cannot imagine not being in science," she says. "I aim to do my science. And that's one way of doing it."

Rather than pursuing a title, she has simply followed the questions she wanted to answer. Becoming a group leader, she says, gradually emerged as the natural way to keep doing exactly that.

"I never thought about being a Group Leader. But everyone was kind of encouraging me to do this. At some point, everyone was like: 'You have to apply for a Group Leader position.'"

What eventually convinced her was the opportunity to devote herself fully to her own ideas.

"I got to the point where I wanted to work on my ideas full time, and wanted to build my own team."

Yet, despite her determination, she admits that taking this next step also comes with uncertainty.

"I'm definitely very shy about the position. It's such a big step, and you start to think: 'Can I do it?' It's exciting, but at the same time you're like: 'Can I really do it?'”.

She believes those doubts are not hers alone.

"I think academic culture tells women all the time that they cannot be group leaders or have kids and be a group leader. So you think you cannot. But somehow you're in it, and somehow it works."

Taking on her own laboratory is therefore both exciting and intimidating.

"The cool thing about it is that you're the one responsible for everything" she says. "But it's also the scary part."

Returning home

For Alena, Parkinson's disease has never been just an academic interest. There is also a personal reason behind it.

"We have Parkinson's disease in the family," she says. "And for my PhD, I knew I wanted to study Parkinson's disease and dopaminergic neurons. The brain is just fascinating."

During her PhD at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, Alena identified an unexpected protein in one of her datasets: SorCS2. Curious, she searched the scientific literature.

“And the only group that came up when we googled this protein was Anders Nykjær's group.”

She secured funding to visit Aarhus during her PhD and, through Anders Nykjær's laboratory, was introduced to DANDRITE and PROMEMO.

"I didn't know where Aarhus was," she admits. "I thought I would probably end up somewhere in the US or another very famous place. But I got funding, came here during my PhD, and everything changed."

What convinced her to stay in Aarhus was not only the science, but also the environment.

"The community was so special. It was so friendly and so multidisciplinary. And I was given so much freedom to do my research - 'Do what makes sense.' That was like heaven to me."

Now, after spending fifteen years in Scandinavia, Alena is preparing to leave the community that has shaped much of her scientific career.

"Every time you move, you deroot yourself."

She pauses, perhaps unconsciously returning to the botanical language she grew up with.

"You lose everything. You have to adapt to a new workplace, a new culture, a new system. And now I have to deroot again."

Yet this time, the move is also a homecoming. Her family, friends and many former colleagues are still in the Czech Republic, where she will establish her laboratory at CEITEC, affiliated with Masaryk University, where she once studied.

"I think of it with a warm feeling in my heart because of my friends and family," she says. "It will be a relief in that sense to return to Czech Republic, because there were lots of sacrifices. I missed out on so many things. So I'm looking forward to it."

- Quick facts -

Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC) at Masaryk University (MU) is an independent, mul-tidisciplinary university research institute, which was established in 2014 at the University Campus in Brno, Czech Re-public. Alena Salasova’s lab will be embedded in the Neuroscience and Molecular Medicine programs with unlimited access to 12 core facilities equipped with cutting-edge technologies in life, nano-technology, and materials science, enabling synergy and cross-disciplinary research.

Alena Salasova’s initial contract for the Junior Research Group Leader position is for 7 years, with an interim evaluation by the International Scientific Advisory Board scheduled for the end of the fourth year and a senior promotional evaluation in the seventh year. Upon a positive evaluation in the seventh year, she will be promoted to the Senior Group Leader position with a permanent work contract.