NANOFACTS team online meeting was held to plan not one but two more secondments at Trinity College Dublin! ESRs Mirjana Mundzić, Mila Đisalov, and Teodora Knežić are gearing up for their upcoming trips.
Stay tuned for updates on their research endeavors in Dublin!
We wish our ESRs the best of luck and hope they make the most of this incredible opportunity.
is a specialist in urgent surgery, with 30 years of practical experience in performing different types of surgeries in urgent care. Dr. Mijatović is a member of numerous surgical societies, a lecturer and participant in different training sessions related to the use of new technologies in laparoscopic surgery, and a co-author of scientific articles on topics related to surgery. His professional and scientific interests include laparoscopic surgery, immunology, and cytokines.
has a Bsc in Physics from the University of Porto and a PhD in Physics from the Carnegie Mellon University (1986). After his PhD at the Carnegie Mellon University, he was a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the IBM Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, USA (1986-87). From 1990 to 2000, he was Director of the Solid State Technology Group at INESC and since 2000, Director of INESC-MN. Professor Freitas has been a full professor of Physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico since 2003, administering the Department of Physics since 2006. In 2007, he joined the Installation Commission of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Institute (INL) and was appointed Deputy Director General in 2009. Professor Freitas received several awards and distinctions, namely: the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian Prize in the area of Nanotechnologies, as PhD supervisor of H. Ferreira (2004); the Prémio Excelência, from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (2005-2006); the 2nd Finalist of Descartes Prize for Research (2007), awarded by The European Commission; and a Distinguished Lecturer award from the IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, USA (2008). Professor Freitas’ current research interests include GMR heads for ultra-high density recording, spin-dependent tunneling junctions, non-volatile memories, magnetic multilayers and thin films, micro magnetism, transport phenomena, GMR sensors, bioelectronics and biosensors. He is author of more than 250 scientific articles, one patent and inventor of a bioelectronic device. Professor Freitas supervised 9 PhD students and develops an intense educational mission to train and coach new scientists and engineers.
Sanja Vranješ Đurić, Research professor, Head of the Laboratory for radioisotopes of the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia, unique Center for the production of radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and cancer treatment in the Balkan region. She completed her PhD at the Faculty of Biochemistry of the University of Belgrade, receiving the Grant of Swiss Confederation on the research project realized in Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève and IZOLDA CERN under the supervision of prof. Gerd-Jürgen Beyer. Afterwards, she participated for five years in the CERN Collaboration, AD-4 experiment (study of Relative Biological Effectiveness of antiproton annihilation). Then she was the leader and the group leader on the several national and EU projects on developing of new radiopharmaceuticals. Dr Vranješ has experience in synthesis and optimization of the conditions for the radiolabeling of different compounds and nanoparticles with vaious radioisotopes: gamma emitters (I-125,Tc-99m, In-111, Gd-149, Tl-201) for use in diagnosis and with alpha (Tb-149) and beta (Sm-153, I-131, Y-90, Lu-177) emitters for use in radiotherapy; investigation of biochemical and biological properties of radiolabelled compounds (in vitro and in vivo studies). She was awarded several times by the Serbian Association of Nuclear Medicine for the achievements in nuclear medicine. She has 59 peer-reviewed journal papers cited 1317 times.
Katarina Zeljić, PhD, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Belgrade, has 12 years of extensive experience in molecular genetics and epigenetics of human pathologies, mainly cancer. Her research interest is mainly focused on molecular biomarkers in cancer, gene association studies – association of gene variants with cancer risk and non-coding RNAs. She obtained PhD from the Faculty of Biology – University of Belgrade in the field of molecular genetics of oral cancer. Since 2011, she has been employed in the Faculty of Biology of the University of Belgrade, first as a teaching associate, assistant, assistant professor, and associate professor since December 2017. Dr Zeljic is an independent professor for the courses Basics of medical genetics and Advanced medical genetics at undergraduate and master studies, respectively. She has supervised several masters and doctoral thesis. Dr Katarina Zeljic was trained at the Cancer Research Centre at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden in 2014 during her research visit. In 2013 she has been awarded by L’Oreal-UNESCO fellowship “For Women in Science” for outstanding achievements. Since July 2020, she is engaged as a research participant in the project SENSOGENE “Cancer biosensors based on gene regulatory elements” funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia within the PROMIS project. In June 2019, dr Katarina Zeljic has completed a master’s degree in bioethics, MSc specialization in research ethics, at Clarkson University, United States. She is the author of 30 scientific papers cited more than 400 times.
Dr. Oliviero Gobbo is a Senior Research Fellow with 10 years’ experience in clinical and pre-clinical MRI. This expertise has leaded him to become involved in different EU projects related to nanomedicine such as ‘Multifun’, “EUNCL’ and ‘NoCanTher’. Dr Oliviero Gobbo is currently working within the drug delivery area in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. He has a particular interest in the improvement of drug delivery, peptide delivery and gene delivery, via different nanocarriers (including e.g. liposomes, nanoparticles, SPION, nanoporous macroparticules). Trained in pre-clinical pharmacokinetics and toxicology, he has been working in private industries and academia for over 20 years. Dr. Gobbo is member of the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) committee, the Animal Research Ethics committee (Trinity College Dublin), serves as a delegate onto the Management Committee for COST Action TD1402 (Multifunctional Nanoparticles for Magnetic Hyperthermia and Indirect Radiation Therapy) and COST action CA17140 (Cancer nanomedicine – from the bench to the bedside). As an expert in nanomedicine, he has acted as evaluator (2016) and Vice-Chair (2018, 2019) for EU Horizon 2020 Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) RIA Open Calls. Dr. Gobbo’s research has been widely published, and he has had a number of publications in leading journals, most notably in Science and in Nature Communications. He has also published 1 book and 1 book chapter.
Jovana Vlaškalin (F) works as a Manager of the Business Development Department at BioSense Institute. She holds an MA in International Relations and Diplomacy and European Studies, Schiller International University (2009) and BA in International Relations and Diplomacy from Schiller International University, USA, FL (2006). She has extensive experience in managing and implementing numerous international and national donor-funded project (including Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance – IPA, Technical Assistance, Sector Budget Support, bilateral and multilateral) in the area of public administration reform, local self-government reform, decentralisation, regional development, human resource management, change management, etc. For the past 10 years, she has been working with public administration bodies, international and civil society organisations towards achieving the prioritised government objectives in line with the EU accession requirements and the national agenda. Since joining Biosense Institute in 2019, she has been working on the implementation of large scale H2020 projects.
is the Project coordinator of the NANOFACTS project and a Senior Researcher at the Center for Sensing Technologies, BioSense Institute. He graduated with PhD in Chemistry in 2009 at Iowa State University, USA; under the supervision of the late Prof. Victor Shang-Yi Lin. He obtained further research experience as a Postdoctoral fellow at University of Houston (research in multistep organic synthesis), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (research in nanomaterials science), Institute Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (research in nanomaterials science), FP7 – ERA Chairs Postdoctoral researcher at Vinča Nuclear Institute and as Pole Chimie Balard Visiting professor at the University of Montpellier. Nikola’s over 60 scientific publications include 2 book chapters and 33 peer-reviewed articles in highly ranked international journals. Nikola is the project coordinator of one H2020 project (NANOFACTS GA 952259), two Serbian national projects (PRECAST – 6060755, Proof of concept – 5566) and two bilateral research projects (with France and Germany). His research interests include the synthesis of functional bioresponsive nanomaterials for their biomedical applications and constructing biosensors.
is a material scientist. In 2010, she obtained her Bachelor of Science on organic chemistry from Ho Chi Minh City University of Science, Vietnam. In 2013, she got Master of Engineering in Polymer Science and Engineering at Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea. Dr. Tran completed her PhD degree in Material Science from Italian Institute of Technology and University of Genoa, Italy, in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. Ilker Bayer and Dr. Athanassia Athanassiou. Her PhD research focused on the development and characterization of biocomposite films, bioelastomers and biofilaments from renewable plant-based resources for sustainable food packaging and fused deposition modeling 3D printing applications. She has been working for almost ten years on polymer processing, characterization, and their applications. She has a deep knowledge and strong expertise on different polymeric composites fabrication techniques including solvent casting and melt-processing methods such as extrusion and hot compression. She is the co-author of 16 peer-reviewed papers (corresponding author of 7 papers) and the author of 1 book chapter. She had also coordinated many work packages in several collaborative projects with industrial partner (Lab2share S.R.L, Italy; SK Energy, South Korea). With the ADMIRE research project entitled ECOSITE, hosted by Dr. Maurice Collins at University of Limerick, Dr. Tran will develop a novel and sustainable water-based process to compatibilize poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC), a CO2-devired polymer, and natural biopolymers achieving high performance renewable and low CO2-foot print biocomposites for food packaging and tissue engineering applications. The versatility of fabrication process will enable the incorporation of active ingredients including low-cost food waste extracts for active food packaging and anti-inflammatory agents for active scaffold applications. The technologies and materials developed will find immediate impact in circular economy and sustainable development, thus contributing to accomplish the objectives of the European Green Deal and the Sustainable Development Goals in the next strategic plan of European Commission.
Jelena (maiden Lazovic) Zinnanti, PhD is currently staff scientist at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany. She graduated in 2004 from Penn State University, Hershey Pennsylvania, USA and received her Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine with focus on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). She previously completed B.Sc. degree in theoretical physics at the Physics University of Belgrade. During her postdoctoral fellowship at California Institute of Technology, she received Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. Before joining Max Planck Institute, she worked on developing imaging strategies and treatments for brain cancers and rare metabolic disorders. Her current research interests are focused on development of robotic devices for cautery and drug delivery inside MRI, RF coil design for sensing and tracking, RF induced hyperthermia, magnetic actuation using magnetic resonance imaging gradients and design of novel contrast agents for MR imaging.
Davide Peddis (DP) graduated magna cum laude in Physical Chemistry (2003) and obtained his PhD in Physical Chemistry (2007) at the University of Cagliari. Now DP is Associate Professor of Physical chemistry @ University of Genova and associate researcher at CNR-ISM. In the years 2007-2009 he worked as Research Fellow at University of Cagliari and at ISM – CNR. He was Senior Scientist at Vinca Institute, University of Belgrade between December 2014 and February 2017 where he was team leader for a group focused on synthesis and functionalization of magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical application. He has extensive experience in collaborations with international groups: he was visiting professor at the Le Mans University (collaboration Prof. J.M. Grenèche), Extended Guest Lecturer at the Uppsala University (collaboration with Prof. P. Nordblad and Dr. R. Mathieu) and visiting scholar at the University of Delaware (Collaboration with Prof. G. Hadjipanayis). Research activity of DP is developed in the framework of Solid State Physical-Chemistry and Condensed Matter Physics, studying the relationship between physical properties, crystalline structures, and morphological features of magnetic nano–hetero-structures (nanoparticles, particles embedded in matrix, core shell structures, hollow nanoparticles, anisometric particles). Particular attention has been devoted to the investigation of fundamental properties of magnetic nanoparticles (static and dynamical properties) with particular interest in materials for applications in biomedicine (MRI, drug delivery, hyperthermia), catalysis, and energy field (permanent magnets, hydrogen production). DP research activity is presented in over 145 peer reviewed papers (h-index/Cit.: 36/3830 – Google Scholar,) and 6 book chapter in the period 2006-2020. He was co-editor of a book titled “New Trends of Nanoparticles Magnetism” (Springer, 2021). DP over 250 communications, including invited (58 personally given) and oral presentations (25 personally given), to national / international conferences ad recognized scientific institution. DP has been co- supervisor of 5 master students, 5 PhD student, 3 post-docs, 5 researchers in formation and he was also appointed for three international PhD committee (February 2015, November 2017 Uppsala University, 2020, Basel University). Davide Peddis has been granted over 1 milion of euro to date, coming for national and EU project.
Mr. Stavros Tsitouras (M) works as Senior Project Manager at Innovation and Business Development Department at BioSense Institute. He holds an MSc in Science and Technology Policy from the University of Sussex – SPRU: Science Policy Research Unit (2004), an MA in Information Systems Management from Bournemouth University (2001) and a BSc in Business Administration from the Higher Technological Educational Institute of Thessaly (2000).
He has more than 15 years of extensive and diverse experience in business and research consulting, technology, scientific R&D and innovation, business development and marketing. He has been involved in the design & implementation of numerous EU (H2020, FP7, INTERREG) and Greek National funded Projects while having substantial experience working with tech startups. Moreover, he has implemented several studies concerning business and marketing exploitation in the field of new technologies, while he has participated as an expert reviewer and SMEs coach in the context of various EU & National Projects.
Dr. Francesco Floris joined the Physics Department of Pavia University as Contract Researcher in 2022. His research activities are carried out in collaboration with Plasmore, a joint spin-off between Pavia University and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, mainly focused on the development and optimization of optoelectronic devices for bio-medical and agri-food applications. His hard skills span from spectroscopic and microscopy techniques, co-packaging design and optimization for opto-electronic devices and systems to computational models based on the finite-difference time-domain method. He previously worked at the Tyndall National Institute (UCC, Ireland) as Research Manager in the Photonics Packaging and Integration Group and at the University of Cagliari (Italy) as Didactical Tutor. He received his MSc. in Physics in 2012 and Ph.D. in Physics in 2016, both with curricula of matter physics, from the University of Pavia (Italy) in the Optical Spectroscopy and Nanostructures Group. During his Ph.D., he also spent a semester at the Boston University (Massachusetts, USA) as Research Scholar thanks to an exchange programme prize of the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.
Prof. Ertl holds an engineering degree in Biotechnology (University of Life Sciences, BOKU, Austria), a PhD in Chemistry (University of Waterloo, UW, Canada) and received his postdoctoral training as a biophysicist at University of California at Berkeley (UCB, US). Following a position as Director of Product Development at a UW spin-off venture (Canada), Dr. Ertl joint the Biosensor Technology unit at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). During his tenure at the AIT, Dr. Ertl was also granted a Fulbright Visiting Scholarship at UC Berkeley (2012) and conducted visiting scientist positions at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2013), the Medical Center of the University of California at San Francisco (2014). In 2016 he was appointed Professor of Lab-on-a-Chip Systems for Bioscience Technologies at the Vienna University of Technology (TUW), where his research focuses on the development of advanced in vitro diagnostic microsystems and organ-on-a-chip systems.
Nebojša Majstorović is an Associate professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of Novi Sad, Department of Psychology, Novi Sad, Serbia. In the period between 2012 and 2015, he was a Vice-Dean for Science and International Cooperation at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. Completed his BA at the University of Novi Sad, MA at the University of Belgrade, and PhD program at the University of Ottawa (Canada). In the year 2007, he earned his PhD degree at the School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Canada. He worked as an assistant at the Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad for 10 years, as a researcher at the Center for Community Based Research (Kitchener, Ontario, Canada), 1 year as an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa, and the past 15 years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Novi Sad. His research interests include factors of organizational and consumer behavior, work ethics and corruption, research methodology and marketing. Published three books, one as a textbook in research methodology, over 20 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, four technical reports and over thirty communications at international and domestic conferences.
Prof. Dr. Goran Stojanović (www.stojanovicgoran.com) is a full professor at Faculty of Technical Sciences (FTS), University of Novi Sad (UNS), Serbia. He received a BSc, MSc and a PhD degree in 1996, 2003 and 2005, respectively, from FTS-UNS, all in electrical engineering. He has 26 years of experience in R&D. He is an author/co-author of 267 articles, including 107 in leading peer-reviewed journals with impact factors, 5 books, 3 patents, 1 chapter in monograph. H-index: 18. Keynote speaker for 12 international conferences. Currently, Prof. Stojanović is the head of the Laboratory for nano and printed electronics. Prof. Stojanović has been a supervisor of 12 PhD students, 40 MSc students and 60 diploma students at the FTS-UNS. He was a General Chair of IEEE International Symposium on Design and Diagnostics of Electronic Circuits and Systems (DDECS2020) and General Vice-Chair of the IEEE East-West Design & Test Symposium (EWDTS2017). Prof. Stojanović is a reviewer of many leading international journals.. He also participated in organization of the Festivals of Science, held in Novi Sad every year. He has more than 15 years’ experience in coordination of EU funded projects (H2020, FP7, EUREKA, ERASMUS, CEI), with total budget exceeding 14.86 MEUR. He participated in many outreach activities: 5 times in Festival of Sciences, 4 times in Researchers’ nights as well as he had more than 12 TV interviews.
Dr. Mai was born and raised in Nha Trang, a beautiful coastal city in Vietnam. In 2011, he got his Bachelor of Engineering, specialized in organic chemistry, at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam. He completed his Master of Engineering in Polymer Science and Engineering at Pukyong National University, Republic of Korea in 2013. Since then, he has been always passionate about the potential of polymer chemistry to create advanced functional materials for biomedical applications. In 2017, he was awarded with his PhD in Nanochemistry from Italian Institute of Technology, Italy. His PhD thesis was mentored by Dr. Teresa Pellegrino and focused on the application of living radical polymerization to synthesize multi-functional polymeric nanomaterials. During the last 10 years, he has acquired deep knowledge and strong competence in advanced polymer chemistry and self-assembly, surface functionalization of nanoparticles and multi-functional nanomaterials for biomedical applications. His main research interests rely at the exploitation of living radical polymerization and click chemistry to prepare well-defined stimuli-responsive polymeric nanomaterials toward applications in biomedical field such as drug delivery and bio-imaging. He has participated in several European and national (Italy) projects on the development of novel nanomaterials for cancer treatment. He is the co-author and co-corresponding author of several peer-reviewed papers in high impact factor journals. He is the co-inventor of 3 patents and has served as referee for several peer-reviewed journals. He was the recipient of Travel grant for PepsiCo and New York Academy of Science STEM Symposium 2018 and the winner of First prize in the pitch challenge, Drug delivery, Micro- and Nano Sensors PhD Summer Schools, Denmark (2016). During his ADMIRE Fellowship entitled POLYGHT, hosted by Dr. Eduardo Ruiz-Hernandez (School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trinity College Dublin), Dr. Mai will develop a novel thermal responsive polymersomes structure to combine photothermal therapy and controlled drug delivery. The goal of POLYGHT is to realize the potential of such nanostructures to tackle glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most aggressive and deadly brain tumors.
Giuseppe Spoto is Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Catania (Italy). He is also an executive committee member of the Biostructures and Biosystems National Institute (INBB) and board member of the Italian Chemical Society – Analytical Chemistry division. Giuseppe received his PhD in Chemical Sciences from the University of Catania. His primary research focuses on the development of innovative detection methods and assays. Plasmonic biosensing and microfluidics are today used in his lab to design new assays for the detection of biomarkers freely circulating in the blood of cancer patients. His research has been primarily supported by grants from the European Commission (running projects: AiPBAND, Horizon 2020 MSCA-ITN-2017; VerSiLiB, Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder Open) and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) and he is the author and co-author of over 100 journal articles and book chapters. Giuseppe acted as the scientific coordinator of the ULTRAPLACAD (Ultrasensitive plasmonic devices for early cancer diagnosis) Horizon 2020 project, cited as an example of what Europe does for cancer patients in the portal “What Europe does for me” (European Parliamentary Research Service).