Vlatka’s lecture at Mayo

3rd April 2018 – an invited lecture for graduate students of the joint Epigenomics program – Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Mayo Clinics, Rochester, and motivated and inspiring talk with six of PhD students working in the lab of the colleagues from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Vlatka’s lecture

Vlatka and David

CoMBoS

CoMBoS – 1st Conference of Molecular Biologists of Serbia ended with my plenary lecture “CRISPR/Cas9 Methodology for Epigenetic Editing“. I spent an interesting day in conversation with Tomasz Jurkowski from the University of Stuttgart, a prominent epigeneticist also interested in epigenetic CRISPR/Cas9 methodology. In February 2016 my team succeeded to publish, as the first in the world, design and validation of the epigenetic tool CRISPR/dCas9-DNMT3A for targeted DNA methylation in Nucleic Acids Research, just six months before Jurkowski and his team published a similar tool. This was a great success for my team. It was my pleasure and privilege to meet Jurkowski in Beograd on CoMBoS and to talk about science with him – such a kind, modest and wise man.

Glyco24 Conference

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At the Glyco24 Conference, which took place on Jeju Island (South Korea), Aleksandar and I gave oral presentations entitled: “MGAT3 Gene Promoter Methylation Correlates with IgG Glycosylation in Inflammatory Bowel Disease” and “Modulation of Glyco-Gene Expression using CRISPR/Cas9-Based Molecular Tools for Epigenetic Editing“. Besides attending an excellent conference, we enjoyed sightseeing of the Jeju island, which was a unique experience. It is not surprising that Jeju island has been listed among the UNESCO natural heritage sites in 2007. Among breath-taking spots, such as Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak and Manjanggul Cave – female divers from Jeju (where diving is exclusively women’s job) called haenyeo (해녀) were included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016, a distinction still coveted by Japanese female divers called ama (海女).

 

ISABS 2017

This year, ISABS conference was very successful for our group. After I gave an invited lecture on Monday 19th, Professor Tamas Ordog, the ISABS program director, invited me to come to Mayo Clinics and deliver a lecture about the CRISPR/Cas9 epigenetic editing tools and its potential use in personalised medicine. Also, Goran and Vlade took the Young Scientist Award for the best poster on behalf of the whole group of colleagues involved in the design and construction of our dCas9-DNMT3A and dCas9-TET1 tools. Congratulations to all !!!

Jenner conference

Aleksandar, Goran, Vlade and me attended to Jenner Glyco 2017 Conference. I gave an invited lecture and Y-team presented a poster. Besides, we enjoyed sun, good food and excellent company of interesting scientists.

Kick-off meeting of SYSCID project

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From 24th to 26th of April, Aleksandar and me were in the beautiful northern German city Kiel – it was freezing cold but this did not prevent us from enjoying cruising Kiel Canal  and drinking bier on the boat:) Besides this, we brainstormed with the top scientists from all over the Europe (SYSCID consortium) and agreed on doing some very exciting experiments which included CRISPR/Cas9 technology.

PS It happened that Aleksandar eaten away a whole fish although he is vegeterian (which do not include eating any living creature:)

Beginning of SYSCID announced in the media

Our new Horizon2020 project “A systems medicine approach to chronic inflammatory disease” (SYSCID) has been announced in several media: Večernji list, news of Nova TV and HRT1, scientific news reports “Prometej”, and “Znanstveni krugovi”. European Commission  has highlighted SYSCID as one of the priority projects of Horizon202 in the field of LifeScience.

https://ec.europa.eu/research/health/index.cfm

https://hrti.hrt.hr/video/show/3179100/prometej-epigenetika

https://hrti.hrt.hr/video/show/3249027/prometej-vikinzi

https://hrti.hrt.hr/video/show/3160171/