Robert Mistrík (, born 13 August 1966) is a Slovak chemist, scientist, businessman, and politician.

Early life

Mistrík was born on 13 August 1966 in Banská Bystrica. He attended Gymnázium Jozefa Gregora Tajovského in Banská Bystrica. In 1991, he graduated with a degree in Analytical Chemistry from the Faculty of Chemical Technology of the

Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) ( sk, Slovenská technická univerzita v Bratislave) is the biggest and oldest university of technology in Slovakia. In the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities it was ranked in the fir ...

. After completing a PhD at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in 1994, Mistrík continued his scientific career as a visiting scholar at the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Early career

In 1998, Mistrík founded the mass spectrometry, metabolomics and chemical analysis firm HighChem, which he still manages. Mistrík served as a member of the scientific steering committee in the METAcancer consortium, focused on the search for breast cancer biomarkers. He is the author of a patent for the identification of small molecules, including novel diagnostic markers of insidious diseases, as well as Mass Frontier software. On 3 February 2009, Mistrík became the laureate of the scientific award "Head of the Year" for the most significant innovation. In 2014, he was re-elected director by members of the international Metabolomics Society. Mistrík leads the development of a cloud-based spectral tree database called mzCloud, which enables the identification of multiple scientific problems. He is also the co-author of the method of searching mass spectra via Google, published in Nature Biotechnology. It was an achievement that a scientist from a Slovak institution managed after 14 years.

Political career

Freedom and Solidarity

In 2009, Mistrík co-founded

Freedom and Solidarity Freedom and Solidarity ( sk, Sloboda a solidarita, SaS) is a liberal political party in Slovakia. Established in 2009, SaS is led by its founder and economist Richard Sulík, who designed Slovakia's flat tax system. It generally holds libertari ...

as a member of the preparatory committee. He was a member of the party until 2012.

2019 Slovak presidential election

On 15 May 2018, Mistrík announced his candidacy as President of Slovakia in the

2019 Slovak presidential election Presidential elections were held in Slovakia in March 2019. Incumbent President Andrej Kiska did not run for a second term. Fifteen candidates contested the first round on 16 March, of which two later formally withdrew their bids before voting to ...

, only to rule out after the announcement of

Zuzana Čaputová Zuzana Čaputová, (; Strapáková; born 21 June 1973) is a Slovak politician, lawyer and environmental activist. She is the fifth president of Slovakia, a position she has held since 15 June 2019. Čaputová is the first woman to hold the presi ...

as new President of Slovakia.

Doping of Matej Tóth

In 2017, Mistrík was accused of doping by Slovak race walker

Matej Tóth Matej Tóth (; born 10 February 1983) is a Slovak race walker. He is a former Olympic champion in the 50 km walk. Career Toth won the gold medal in the 50 km walk at the 2010 IAAF World Race Walking Cup, and at the 2015 World Championsh ...

. Mistrík also led a domestic public presentation of expert arguments proving Tóth's innocence, who was cleared of all suspicions and cleared by the IAAF.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mistrik, Robert Living people Candidates for President of Slovakia Slovak chemists University of Vienna alumni Politicians from Banská Bystrica 1966 births Freedom and Solidarity politicians Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava alumni