Matyáš Fendrych Receives ISTA Alumni Award

Fendrych, a group leader at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, received the award in honor of his impact on the auxin field at large, including his contributions at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) when he was a postdoc. He is the fourth recipient of the award.

Plant biologist Matyáš Fendrych is the recipient of the 2025 ISTA Alumni Award, presented each year to an ISTA alum to honor their outstanding achievements.

Not one to seek out the spotlight, Fendrych says he was surprised when he received the news. “I didn’t even send my updated CV to Jiří when he asked me for it, but I was really pleased when I received the message, and especially to hear what my colleagues think of my work.” Professor Jiří Friml nominated Fendrych for the award and notes that his work while at ISTA ultimately led to some of the most important discoveries of Friml’s career. “He left a crucial and lasting impact on the current and future work of our lab.” Other colleagues echoed Friml’s sentiments, including Mark Estelle of University of California, San Diego, who praises Fendrych as the international leader in studies of rapid auxin signaling.

Fendrych joined the Friml group at ISTA in 2014 as a postdoc and was instrumental in establishing the vertical microscope and root microfluidics, which are used daily by the researchers in the group. When not in the lab, he could be found meeting with colleagues from various groups for coffee or to share what they’re working on, picking up his children from the kindergarten, or biking in the woods in Klosterneuburg. “As a postdoc, it can feel like the time when you do the most, and ISTA had everything I needed, inside the lab and out.”

Since his departure in 2017, he has continued his research back home where he now leads a group at the Institute of Experimental Botany at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. “I am happy to bring back some skills, procedures, and approaches that I learned abroad back to my home country.” While he still waits to publish some of the group’s more recent research, he can already share that they have found exciting data and answers in their work. “It’s great when it’s your postdocs and students that make these discoveries. These are the ‘wow’ moments that really make the job worth it for me.”

Fendrych visited ISTA for the first time in several years to receive the award at the Graduation Ceremony alongside the most recent graduates. Asked what his advice is for those considering a career in research: “Time is the most precious thing that you will give to your group as a researcher. Make sure that you enjoy what you do, and that you are doing it for you.”

Fendrych joins fellow ISTA alumni entrepreneur Harold P. de Vladar, machine learning researcher Alexander Kolesnikov, and mathematician Anton Mellit as recipients of the ISTA Alumni Award.