Jan Trka completed his scientific training in Prague, Vienna and Bristol, UK. Later he co-founded the CLIP (Childhood Leukaemia Investigation Prague) group, which is now a well-known centre of research in the field of paediatric haematological disorders. His particular areas of expertise are the monitoring of minimal residual disease and new technologies for its detection, as well as leukaemia clone origin and development and genomic classification and stratification of childhood leukaemias. Jan Trka's scientific work has been cited more than 8000 times so far. He has mentored a number of students who are now respected independent scientists in various countries around the world. This year his mentoring work was awarded the prestigious Education and Mentoring Award of the European Hematology Association (EHA).

The CLIP group performs advanced immunological, genetic and genomic diagnostics of paediatric haematological diseases. It provides comprehensive diagnosis of acute leukaemias and monitoring of residual disease for children and a proportion of adult patients from all over the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition, the CLIP group is involved in a number of scientific projects ranging from immunology and genomics of paediatric haematological malignancies to cancer cell metabolism and gene therapy methods. Currently, the CLIP group has more than 50 staff and trains 13 graduate students.

Jan Trka is the only Czech who has served successively on several committees of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), on scientific committees of EHA congresses, and as chair of the Biology and Diagnosis Committee of the I-BFM global leukaemia working group. He is currently co-chair of the EuroMRD consortium, which brings together more than 70 laboratories from all over the world involved in residual disease detection in leukaemias.

He lives permanently in Prague, enjoys sports and fine arts outside work and is the enthusiastic owner of a Vespa scooter.