Institute of Clinical Immunology and Allergology

The history of our institute is inextricably linked to the personalities of Prof. František Patočka and Prof. Ctirad John. Prof. Patočka was the head of the Institute for Bacteriology and Serology since 1936. In 1945 he took over the premises of the former German Medical Faculty and founded the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Immunology as part of the Faculty of General Medicine - now the 1st Medical Faculty. Faculty of Medicine. He conceived this institute as a trio of partly overlapping and complementary sectors of education, clinical and research. Prof. Patočka was a microbiologist, but he clearly recognized the potential of immunology, which began to develop rapidly in the second half of the 20th century. Under Patočka's leadership, a research laboratory for special medical microbiology and immunology was established at the institute as a separate unit in 1971. In 1971 Prof. Ctirad John took over the management of the institute after Prof. Patočka – then an associate professor, the professorship was not allowed at the time of normalization for political reasons. Prof. John became the chief representative of immunology at our institute. His love for immunology was greatly stimulated by his stay at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Due to his microbiological beginnings and due to the coexistence of microbiology and immunology at one institute, Prof. John directed the research work to study the relationship between the microbe and the host's immune system. Prof. John was also an excellent teacher, he was able to inspire a love for immunology in the students and many of our immunologists consider themselves his pupils. He was the head of the institute until 1986, but he remained at the institute for many more years and he was a support and encouragement for us. Clinical immunology developed under the leadership of doc. Fučíková initially within the 1st Internal Clinic. Later, a separate Department of Clinical Immunology was established, which was dedicated to patients with immunopathological conditions. Both the Faculty Polyclinic and the Allergological Department worked independently on it.

In 1991, the massive development of immunology and its great clinical importance forced the constitution of immunology as a separate field at the 1st medical faculty. The teaching of immunology was initially provided by the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Immunology. In 1994, it was created by the merger of the Laboratory for Special Medical Microbiology and Immunology led by prof. Milan Mára and the Department of Clinical Immunology of the General University Hospital led by prof. Terezia Fučíková The Institute of Clinical Immunology and prof. Fučíková became its head. In 2001, for organisational reasons, the merger of microbiology and immunology was again made in the Institute of Immunology and Microbiology (led successively by prof. Ivan Šterzl and prof. Libuše Kolářová), which existed until the end of 2024 and at the beginning of 2025 transformed again into two separate institutes: the Institute of Medical Microbiology and the Institute of Clinical Immunology and Allergology. Prof. RNDr. Jiří Hrdý, PhD, became the first head of the Institute of Clinical Immunology and Allergology.