Doc. Ing. Petr Kaštánek, Ph.D.
Assoc. Prof. Ing. Petr Kaštánek, Ph.D., founder of the company BIOCEN Laboratories and the NEOBOTANICS brand, is a successful Czech scientist, biotechnologist, and a great lover of nature. He is captivated by adrenaline sports, thanks to which he leads his research expeditions to the most remote corners of the Earth, where he searches for new active substances for cosmetics, food supplements or medicines. He discovered medicinal herbs with shamans on the island of Siberut near Sumatra, learned about the healing rituals of the Piraoa Indians on the Venezuelan-Colombian border in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, researched seaweed on the islands of Papua, traveled to the Lacandon forest on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, and visited the Akh mountain tribes on the Burma-Laos border, etc. The last expedition took him all the way to Antarctica, where he studied microscopic algae and lichens.
Petr leads teams of experts who examine the samples taken and develop new preparations from them. He is thus one of the few scientists who stand at the very beginning of the research and only after putting his conclusions into practice.
Holder of a number of patents (the most recent one was presented at EXPO Dubai as part of the Czech pavilion) and awards, such as Visionary of the Year.
active substances from glaciers and forests
I am attracted to remote, wild and untouched nature in hotspots of biodiversity, or with extreme climatic conditions, such as rainforests, volcanoes or the glaciers of Antarctica. These are places where local algae, bacteria or lichens had to adapt to rapidly changing daily conditions and stress, and build defense mechanisms to survive by producing bioactive substances to protect them from extreme cold or damaging UV radiation. And it is these substances that hold enormous potential for cosmetics or natural medicines to protect human skin.
