Senior Researcher

1976: born in former Czechoslovakia 2006 & 2015: Ph.D. in chemistry of dithiocarbamate complexes with metals (Palacky University in Olomouc) & Ph.D. in Rorty, pragmatism & objectivity of natural sciences (Charles University in Prague) 2006-2007: transition to the research of the medicinal properties of dithiocarbamates (Current Pharmaceutical Design 2007, based on this paper the collaboration with Raymond J. Deshaies began; his lab tested the JAMM domain hypothesis: dithiocarbamate complexes target proteins with JAMM domain). 2009-2015: a Researcher and Lecturer in Cell Biology with focus on Ubiquitin-Proteasome System and Drug Repurposing at Department of Cell Biology & Genetics, Palacky University 2009 onwards: a Lecturer in Philosophy of Science (Faculty of Science, Palacky University) 2012: the concept of non-profit drugs was developed, with disulfiram serving as a prime example. The term "CuEt", abbreviating the disulfiram-copper complex, was introduced for the first time in the public domain (see Figure 1 in Cvek B: Drug Discovery Today, 2012). 2015 onwards: a Senior Researcher in the Development of "Nonprofit Drugs" at Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University; a series of Letters to the Editor (2015-2017) to Health Affairs, Lancet Global Health, American Journal of Public Health, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences (in the Letter in TiPS, he proposed a paradigm shift in drug discovery, suggesting that searching for positive side effects of common drugs could lead to the discovery of unexpected targets rooted in clinical reality, as happened in Nature paper mentioned below) 2017: one of the three corresponding authors of the Nature paper that explains the unique mechanism of action of disulfiram in cancer. The path of discovery began with the hypothesis that the disulfiram-copper complex (CuET) targets JAMM domain proteins (Current Pharmaceutical Design, 2007). This hypothesis was then tested for the first time in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2008). Further experiments overturned this hypothesis, leading to the discoveries in the Nature paper. 2018 onwards: systematic research on why nonpatentable inexpensive drugs are not developed for life-saving indications (Drug Discovery Today 2022) 2022 onwards: interested in the profound crisis in medicinal chemistry revealed by papers presenting disulfiram as a panacea, as well as the crisis in biomedicine in general (ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, 2023; Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 2025).