Lucie Novotna was a NOMIS–Salk Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, US).

Novotna was born and raised in a small village in central Czech Republic. She obtained her BS in 2008 in biology and clinical biology at the University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science in Ceske Budejovice. Faculty of Science closely collaborates with the Academy of Science of Czech Republic, where she first discovered her passion for science and new discoveries. She joined the Molecular Biology of Protists laboratory in the first semester of her bachelor’s studies. In 2005 and 2006 she received Student Grant Agency Awards, internal awards for young students. She completed her master’s degree in 2010 from University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science in Ceske Budejovice. She did her doctoral studies at University of California Riverside, focusing on Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of sleeping sickness.

As a NOMIS–Salk Fellow, Novotna used multidisciplinary approaches to elucidate structure-functional relations and the molecular underpinnings of T cell signaling mechanisms to identify novel targets for immunotherapies for cancer. In particular, she investigated immune checkpoint called programmed cell death protein 1 (PD1) and its interaction with a protein called SHP2. By combining in vivo and in vitro studies, she uncovered details into how SHP2’s enzymatic activity is regulated. This deeper understanding of protein-protein communication will help researchers uncover new possibilities to find better targets or improve current immunotherapies.