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Academician Milena Stevanović was awarded for her contribution to the development of molecular biology in Serbia by the Serbian Society for Molecular Biology (MolBioS)

Congratulations to Academician Milena Stevanović, who was awarded for her contribution to the development of molecular biology in Serbia by the Serbian Society for Molecular Biology (MolBioS). The award ceremony took place at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts on October 8th. Prof. Dr. Gordana Matić highlighted Academician Milena Stevanović’s significant contributions to genetic engineering, human molecular genetics, elucidating molecular mechanisms of oncogenesis and neurogenesis, as well as disease modeling. Academician Milena Stevanović also made a great impact on the Faculty of Biology at the University of Belgrade through her dedication to student education. Prof. Dr. Gordana Matić also emphasized that Academician Milena Stevanović should be regarded as a symbol of molecular biology in Serbia.

Additionally, Prof. Dr. Goran Brajušković acknowledged Academician Milena Stevanović’s substantial contributions to the development and promotion of molecular biology in Serbia. At the conclusion, Academician Milena Stevanović shared her journey from her early days as a student, from her first SOX gene cloning to the first images of human induced pluripotent stem cells generated in Serbia, highlighting the beauty of molecular biology.

Academician Milena Stevanović considers her greatest success to be leaving a laboratory full of researchers capable of independently carrying on the research work.

STREAMLINE outreach at VII Congress of the Serbian Genetic Society

VII Congress of the Serbian Genetic Society was held from October 2nd to October 5th, 2024. at Zlatibor mountain of extraordinary beauty, and pleasant climate. This Congress covered many fields of genetics including molecular genetics and genomics, medical genetics and personalized medicine, population and evolutionary genetics, microbial genetics, breeding and genetic engineering, genotoxicology, new technologies, and others. This was a great opportunity to increase the visibility of the STREAMLINE Project and STREAMLINE hub among academic public. Accordingly, within the congress STREAMLINE team organized thematic workshop: “STREAMLINE hub for modelling disease and discovering molecular mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders”. The majority of attendees was Congress participants that had an opportunity to learn about the latest iPSCs-based approaches for studying neurodevelopmental disorders, as well as to join STREAMLINE hub.

As invited speaker, dr Danijela Drakulic, presented STREAMLINE outputs through lecture “Establishment of a model system for studying neurodevelopmental disorders using induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients with 22q11.2 Deletion” within session Medical genetics. The main focused of the lecture was on STREAMLINE Exploratory Research Project and how far we have come in designing a new iPSCs-based tool for unveiling neuropathological mechanisms of human neurodevelopmental disorders.

During poster sesions, the youngest STREAMLINE team members Jovana Kostić and Ivana Simeunović presented their PhD topics in form of posters – “Patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells with 22q11.2 microdeletion: a model system for investigating neurodevelopmental disorders” and “Characterization of induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with 22q11.2 Duplication Syndrome”, subsequently. Particularly, they briefly introduced the establishment of iPSCs from patients with 22q11.2 duplication and deletion syndrome as model systems for studying neurodevelopmental disorders.

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STREAMLINE at Netherlands School of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology

In the period from 23rd to 27th September, PhD students from STREAMLINE team Stefan Lazić, Jelena Pejić, Luka Bojić, Jovana Kostić and Ivana Simeunović attended the course Multi-Omics and Data Sciences in Complex Disease held at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. The course is organized by the Netherlands School of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BioSB), which focuses on knowledge exchange and training in these areas. 

During their stay in the Netherlands, they had the opportunity to hear more about current developments in the field of epigenomics, epigenome wide association studies (EWAS), as well as to apply the knowledge in practice on examples. In addition, the topics of the course were related to the design of studies in molecular epidemiology, machine learning, but also the integration of different types of data. Participants also had the opportunity to talk to experts in these fields about their experiments and analysis of their own data.

Thanks again to organizers from Netherlands School of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from Maastricht for this great opportunity.