Jaroslava Folbergrová, Dr.Sc. (1932 – 2024)

Abstract

Jaroslava Folbergrová, an outstanding scientist, passed away on Sunday, January 28 at the age of 91. She was born in 1932 in Nový Bydžov, Czechoslovakia. She studied biochemistry in Charles University, School of Mathematics and Physics in Prague. She started her scientific carrier with studies of the metabolism of ammonia in the brain. She came to the Institute of Physiology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, in 1958 and she worked there for incredible 65 years till the very end of her life. All the time she was interested in brain metabolism mostly during and after epileptic seizures – at first in Department of Cytochemistry of Nerve Cell, headed by Zdeněk Lodin, where she defended Ph.D. thesis on the „Effect of methionine sulfoximine on brain metabolism“. She defended her „Doctor of Science (Dr.Sc.)“ thesis in 1990 and continued working in this laboratory till 2000 when she entered Department of Developmental Epileptology of the Institute of Physiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research was further focused on brain metabolism in relation to epileptic seizures and also to brain hypoxia. Two international collaborations were important for her scientific life: Eighteen months spent in 1965-1967 in Washington University in St. Louis, MO where she worked under the leadership of prof. Oliver Lowry, and longlasting collaboration with prof. Siesjo in Lund University, Sweden. Her stage in prof. Lowry’s Institute resulted in four highly cited papers (including one with 255 citations). Repeated visits in Lund led to nearly 50 primary publications in prestigious international journals (some of these papers also reached more than 200 citations). She progressively extended her field of interest to developing brain and the role of oxidative stress in epileptic seizures and their metabolic and functional consequences. Jarka Folbergrová was fully devoted to her scientific work. It was common to see her leaving the institute in the late afternoon with her notebook and a lot of papers to continue in her work at home. She will be missed in the Institute because she very well represented the tradition both at our country and abroad. She was also very friendly person and an inspiring colleague.