Professor Oldřich Pytela, University of Pardubice, Czech Republic, and Professor Otto Wolfbeis, University of Regensburg, Germany, have received the Hanuš medal. The Hanuš medal is awarded by the Czech Chemical Society (Česká Společnost Chemická; ČSCH) to prominent domestic and foreign researchers in chemistry recognition of their professional and educational achievements. It has been presented at the 4th Joint Czech-Hungarian-Polish-Slovak Thermoanalytical Conference end of June 2013 in Pardubice, Czech Republic.

Professor Oldřich Pytela is recognized for his work in the field of organic chemistry. He is interested in the relationship between the chemical structure and properties of organic compounds, and in chemometrics, that is, the mathematical–statistical analysis of experimental data, in organic chemistry.

Pytela graduated from the University of Pardubice in 1974 in organic chemistry, and received his doctorate in 1979 under the guidance of M. Večeři. After working as a postgraduate researcher for a number of years, he competed his Habilitation in 1990 and in 1996 was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Pardubice. Between 1995–1997 he served as dean of the Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice.

Professor Otto Wolfbeis is recognized for his work on optical (fiber) chemical sensors, fluorescence spectroscopy, fluorescent probes and labels, and luminescent nanomaterials.

Wolfbeis was a post-doctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Radiation Chemistry, Mülheim, Germany, with Professor Koerner von Gustorf from 1972–1974 and then at the Technical University Berlin, Germany, with Professor E. Lippert, from 1976–1977. In 1977, he became Assistant Professor at Karl-Franzens University, Graz, Austria, and then, in 1987, he was made an Associate Professor. Since 1995, he has been Professor of Analytical and Interface Chemistry at the University of Regensburg, Germany.

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Recent publications by Oldřich Pytela:

• Solvatochromism as an efficient tool to study N,N-dimethylamino- and cyano substituted π-conjugated molecules with an intramolecular charge-transfer absorption,
  Filip Bureš, Oldřich Pytela, Milan Kivala, François Diederich,
  J. Phys. Org. Chem. 2011, 24, 274–281.
  DOI: 10.1002/poc.1744
• Imidazole as a Donor/Acceptor Unit in Charge-Transfer Chromophores with Extended π-Linkers,
  Jiří Kulhánek, Filip Bureš, Oldřich Pytela, Tomáš Mikysek, Jiří Ludvík,
  Chem. Asian J. 2011, 6, 1604–1612.
  DOI: 10.1002/asia.201100097

Recent publications by Otto Wolfbeis:

• Optical Sensing of Ionic Strength Using Photonic Crystals in a Hydrogel Matrix,
  Christoph Fenzl, Stefan Wilhelm , Thomas Hirsch, Otto S. Wolfbeis,
  ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2013, 5, 173–178.
  DOI: 10.1021/am302355g

• Fluorescent pH-Sensitive Nanoparticles in an Agarose Matrix for Imaging of Bacterial Growth and Metabolism,
  Xu-dong Wang, Robert J. Meier, Otto S. Wolfbeis,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 53, 406–409.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201205715