"I need not only quality scientists on my team, but more importantly, people who have the right energy and commitment. I need to work where I feel comfortable, and with people I feel comfortable with," says Professor Martin Pumera, who leads the international research group ADVANCED NANOROBOTS AND MULTISCALE ROBOTICS LAB at VSB-TUO, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

The lab has been operating for a year and a half. How many people do you have on your team?
Our team is gradually growing, we now have ten foreign scientists, one student and the rest are postdocs. We want to get to twenty people, which I think is the ideal number, a stable group that is still well managed. My goal is not to have the same scientists in the team for the next ten years who can't grow any further, there is no progression. I want to educate them so that in maybe two or three years they can lead their own group.

How do you run the lab in Ostrava?
I do science the same way I learned to do it during my time in the US. My boss had four labs with different focuses. The advantage was that sometimes everything connected nicely and people could work on interdisciplinary topics. In this way, I ran labs in Japan, Singapore and now Ostrava. In any field you can explore more and more in depth, but there it's already very much explored, and then how do you get further? In hyperbole, it's similar to mines. They are already mined out too, so you have to go to greater and greater depths and put in a lot of effort with uncertain results. But in between those mines, you might as well dig with a shovel just below the surface and find a great deposit because it hasn't been mined yet. And so I do scientific research as well, and it is the interconnection of different disciplines and directions that I find most interesting.

Is that why your team is also involved in several areas of research?
Yes, we have several focus areas, whether it's nanorobotics, flexible wearable electronics, 3D printing for electrochemical devices or advanced materials for energy storage and conversion. Most of our work in the lab is on nanorobots. I liken these technologies to Legos: you can buy just a basic box with blocks or you can buy a whole set, like a haunted castle. And that's exactly what we do, we use and combine technologies like Lego blocks. We can build a nanorobot according to what we want it to do, give it a function. Maybe it can heal you, clean up the environment, or do something even more interesting.

What are you currently working on?
For example, we are currently working on the important area of converting pollutants into useful chemicals.We are working on the conversion of nitrates, which we can convert into ammonia, an important carbon-free hydrogen carrier.So we're talking about the fuel of the future.We have now used nanotubes as catalysts in our research and this will make ammonia production less energy intensive.We are preparing our results for publication, which is innovative.Maybe someone in the field of nanorobots thought of it before us, but just doesn't have the necessary experience in ammonia research behind them.
I always tell my people that anyone can have a great idea, but if we just can't do it in the lab, we don't have the skills, it's just an idea. You have to have the idea, the ability to execute it and do it quickly, because you're not the only one in the world and there's probably another group already working on something similar. The important thing is to be able to find your area where you are unique.

Do you have other projects?
We have received two projects from the Ministry of Health, which include collaborating institutions, and we are working on nanorobotics for biomedical applications.
Great scientists are gradually joining the team, and a new scientist has recently joined the team as part of the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Fellowship, working on a project focused on electrochemical interfacial engineering of metal-organic frameworks towards aluminium semiconductor batteries.Just as I traveled to New Mexico early in my career to visit my mentor Prof. Wang, who is one of the best in his field, students now come to see me and want to work on projects in my labs.

How do you choose people for your team?
It's important to me that they are quality scientists, but I also need people who are honest, have the right energy and commitment. I need to work where I feel comfortable and with people I feel comfortable with.
I consider it essential to be able to divide the work among all team members. My role as group leader is to set the scientific direction of the research, discuss results and mentor the development of my staff, raise funds to run the lab, secure university support and present results. As a chemist, I am gradually trying to break into other fields, which is why I also started my MBA a few years ago. But in the end I didn't finish the MBA, I wasn't the best student (laughs).
I am happy in Ostrava because the management at VSB-TUO and the faculty has a clear vision: they want to get excellent foreign scientists to the university and they know how to do it.I feel a lot of support here.

VSB - TUO is also involved in space research within the CAERPIN project. How is this project inspiring for you?
It is a very close topic for me, because I have always enjoyed space and as a student I used to visit the observatory in Prague.
Then I got into space in the US, my boss had a collaboration at Caltech (California Institute of Technology) where NASA research is done. The NASA connection gives Caltech access to cutting-edge resources and technology. And now another opportunity has opened up at the University of Ostrava to participate in the mission with astronaut Ales Svoboda to the International Space Station (ISS). I am glad that I am working at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, because there are experts working here in areas in which I am not an expert. We complement each other, which for me is the ideal mark.

You have worked abroad for many years. Where did you feel the best?
My wife and I agree that Japan was the best.
I really like their culture, basic decency and respect. The Japanese take pride in their work, whether you're a cashier in a supermarket or a parking lot attendant. I learned a lot of things there. You should be precise in your work, I hate sloppiness. I want the people on my team to do a perfect job and not rely on it "somehow" working out.

You smile a lot, you always seem to be in a good mood. Anything upset you?
My role is to motivate the people in the group and train them to do cutting-edge science.
I'm 90% positive, but sometimes I get grumpy. Now, of course, we're not talking about the results of research, it just doesn't always work out the way we want it to. But I don't like it when someone comes to a meeting unprepared or does the same thing wrong the third time, and the situation repeats itself. Exceptionally, I can even raise my voice, which usually happens when I have to defend my group.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Professor Martin Pumera is the head of the international research group ADVANCED NANOROBOTS AND MULTISCALE ROBOTICS LAB at VSB-TUO, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He also heads the Future Energy and Innovation Labs at CEITEC BUT. He received his PhD from Charles University in 2001. After two postdoctoral fellowships (USA, Spain), he became a tribal group leader at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan in 2006. In 2010, he joined Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he worked as an associate professor for almost ten years.
Prof. Pumera has broad interests in nanomaterials and microsystems, with specific interests in electrochemistry and synthetic chemistry of 2D nanomaterials, nanotoxicity, micro and nanomachines, and 3D printing.
He has published over 900 papers that have received more than 75,000 citations and an h-index of 129.