RNDr. František Moravec, DrSc.

He studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Brno (specialization for zoology) and graduated in 1962. In 1964, he became a postgraduate student in the Institute of Parasitology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, in Prague, where he was later employed as a reseacher. In 1967, he obtained the degree RNDr. from the University of Brno. In 1969, he defended his candidate thesis "Nematodes of fishes in Czechoslovakia and developmental cycles of some species" in the Institute of Parasitology in Prague and earned the degree of the Candidate of Biological Sciences (C.Sc. = Ph.D.). In the following years, he continued his research of fish helminths, especially nematodes. Results of his more than twenty years' studies in this field became a basis for writing his doctoral thesis "Bionomy of parasitic nematodes of freshwater fishes" on the basis of which he received the title of Doctor of Sciences (D.Sc.) in 1981. In the same year he was appointed head of the Department of Helminthology of the Institute of Parasitology, then Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (now Academy of sciences of the Czech Republic); the Institute moved from Prague to České Budějovice in 1985. In 1985-1988, he was the Acting Editor of the international journal Folia Parasitologica. In 1988, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and remained at this position until this Academy was dissolved in 1993. At present he continues to be the head of the Department of Helminthology, of the Laboratory of Nematology, and the curator of the Helminthological Collection of the Institute.

For many years his research activity has been oriented mainly to studies of the biology, ecology and taxonomy of helminth parasites of fishes and some other vertebrates, where he has achieved many priority results; he has broad international co-operations. He himself worked in many countries (e.g., in Egypt to study human schistosomosis in 1971-1974, or in Mexico as a professor and a head of the chair and the parasitological laboratory in the Centre for Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN) in Mérida in 1994-1995). He published about 350 scientific papers, including 11 books. He was an organizer or a co-organizer of two international symposia on fish parasites, three international ichthyoparasitological training courses and the International Workshop on Anguillicolosis of Eels. He has been the supervisor of several Czech and foreign Ph.D. students. He is a member of editorial boards of two domestic and three foreign international scientific journals, of various professional commissions and domestic and foreign scientific societies.