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Prof. RNDr. František Hindák, DrSc.

Prof. RNDr. František Hindák, DrSc has passed away

10. 9. 2019 | 1746 visits

The death occurred on 6 September 2019 of leading Slovak algologist, Prof. Mgr. František Hindák, DrSc., Emeritus worker of the Institute of Botany of the SAS Center of Plant Biology and Biodiversity, at the age of 82.

He was born on March 25, 1937 in Modranka near Trnava. His scientific life is inherently linked to the study of microscopic phototrophic organisms - cyanobacteria / cyanobacteria and algae. After graduating from the Faculty of Biology of Charles University in Prague (1959) he began his scientific career in Bratislava in the Laboratory of Fisheries and Hydrobiology of the CSAPV Branch. In 1968 he joined the SAS Institute of Botany in Bratislava (now the SAS Center of Plant Biology and Biodiversity) where he worked continuously until the end of his scientific activities. He completed his postgraduate at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences in Trebon.

In his field he perfected his knowledge through several foreign stays, e.g. in Cuba, Switzerland, or the United States. He received the title of Doctor of Biological Sciences (DrSc.) in Botany (1979). As an active external teacher at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, he habilitated as associate professor (1992) and later as a professor of ecology at the Technical University in Zvolen (2004).

Professor František Hindák, respected in the domestic and foreign scientific community, has contributed significantly to the knowledge of cyanobacteria and algae not only in Slovakia but also in various parts of the world. For science he defined 33 new genera and more than 170 new taxa. He created remarkable comprehensive scientific work on cyanobacteria and green algae of the aquatic habitats of Slovakia. He authored or co-authored more than 650 publications, of which 27 are books, including university textbooks. He won the Slovak Literary Fund (SLF) Prize for books on Freshwater Algae with a co-authorial team, for the Basics of the System and Evolution of Spore Plants and for the Tatra National Park and the SLF prize for a Photographic Atlas of Microscopic Cyanobacteria. He organized international scientific symposia on green algae biology and taxonomy at the SAS congress centres in Smolenice and Stará Lesná. He used his scientific knowledge in many hydrobiological courses organized in Slovakia and abroad. Expert reports of his helped to resolve tasks for the State Nature Conservation of the Slovak Republic, TANAP as well as for Bratislava.