Oliver Vugrek

Oliver Vugrek (OV) graduated in Biology at the Albert Einstein University of Ulm (Germany) in 1992, and received a PhD in Natural Sciences in 1995 at the Karl Ruprechts University of Heidelberg (Germany) with magna cum laude. After postdoctoral fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for Cellbiology (Heidelberg), and the Australian National University in Canberra, he moved to the Ruđer Bošković Institute (RBI) in 1999. From 2012 to 2015 he was appointed Head of the Department of Molecular Medicine, and at present moment he is head of the Laboratory for Advanced Genomics at RBI.

OV is highly familiar with recombinant DNA technology, and new technologies such as microarrays, and next-generation sequencing. OV’s main research interests and expertise are within molecular genetics of rare inherited metabolic diseases. Throughout his research he participated in the discovery of a new metabolic disease in human, S-Adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase (AHCY) deficiency. Now he is intensively involved in elucidation of the adverse pathological processes in regard to methylation, and methylation errors as a cause of the disease.

Worthwhile to mention is that OV led 7 research projects (EU, national and international level). The greatest achievement so far is the European FP7 project InnoMol, the largest project ever conducted in Croatia in Natural Sciences, with a budget of 4.8 Mil EUR. Subsequently, by assembling a State-of-the-Art Next-Generation-Sequencing facility he has helped to advance genomics research at RBI, fostering cancer diagnostics in collaboration with Croatian Hospital Centers.

OV is actively participating in academic activities and serves as member of the FEBS Fellowships Committee, and the Croatian Science foundation.

OV has organized the International Conference ‘Game of Epigenomics, April 24 - 28, 2016, Dubrovnik, Croatia, and several workshops and minisymposia at RBI. Also, he is involved in teaching activities for postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Science and Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb.

So far, he has mentored 5 doctorates and 7 graduate theses. Other activities include memberships in RBI Committees, Croatian Societies and editorial boards of scientific journals.

In 2010, he has received the Annual Award of the RBI director for outstanding scientific achievement. So far, OV has published 39 papers, of which 35 are peer-reviewed papers with a total of 741/791 citations (WoS/SCOPUS) and h-index of 12.