On 29 September 2021 Matea Ivaničić successfully defended her master’s thesis titled: “Silencing of ATF3 in primary cortical cultures derived from neonatal opossum Monodelphis domestica”.

Prof. Miranda Mladinić participated at the 8^th Croatian neuroscience congress organized by Croatian Society for Neuroscience held on 24-25 September 2021 with the talk entitled “Opossum Monodelphis domestica in research of neuroregeneration and neurodegeneration”.

On 9 September 2021 our first LNM PhD student Antonela Petrović successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled: “Revealing molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in neuroprotection and neuroregeneration after central nervous system injury”. Her PhD defence was part of the “3^rd PhD days” hosted by the Department of Biotechnology, with the participation of distinguished guests. More about this memorable event can be found here.

On 27 July 2021 our MSc students Carla Marion and Perina Šiljeg successfully defended their master’s theses entitled “Quantification of expression of markers of the central
nervous system of postnatal opossums (Monodelphis domestica)” and “Identification of cortex cells during postnatal development of M. domestica”, respectively. 

On 23 July 2021 Marta Pongrac successfully defended her master’s thesis titled: „In vitro regeneration of primary cell cultures of cortex from postnatal grey short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica“ in front of the committee composed of Assoc. Prof. Ivana Munitić, Assoc. Prof. Dinko Mitrečić, Prof. Miranda Mladinić Pejatović (co-mentor) and Assist. Prof. Jelena Ban (mentor).

All lab members participated in the online meeting “3D cell culture & organoids”. Jelena Ban presented our work entitled “Monodelphis domestica – derived neurospheres: new mammalian 3D in vitro cell model for CNS development and regeneration studies”. More information about this event can be found here.

Our master students Marta Pongrac and Matea Ivaničić participated at the 10th Student congress of Neuroscience NeuRi 2021 that took place in Rijeka, 23th – 25th April 2021. Their poster entitled “Research of neuroregenerative mechanisms on primary cortical cell cultures derived from Monodelphis domestica” by Marta Pongrac, Matea Ivaničić, Antonela Petrović, Ivana Tomljanović, Jelena Ban and Miranda Mladinić Pejatović was awarded as the best poster presentation. 

This year’s BAW Rijeka moved to online platforms due to unpredictable nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. As in the previous year, our goal was to acquaint the public with the work of Department of Biotechnology’s neuroscientists through a series of lectures aimed at general public, with emphasis on younger audience. Benefits of such an arrangement is the ability to stream our lectures directly to the primary and middle schools, without any risk of health hazard.

More than 100 people joined in to listen to this year’s lecture schedule, which was held from 15. to 19. March.