Welcome Marija Zanic
It is a great pleasure for me to announce the arrival of Marija Zanic, Ph.D., who will be joining the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology as an Assistant Professor on August 1, 2014. Trained as a theoretical physicist and cytoskeleton biologist, Marija will add a quantitative flair and computational modeling to the diverse expertise already boasted by the Department.
Marija earned her Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Texas, Austin under the guidance of Dr. Sonia Paban. Her thesis work focused on cosmology-string theory, using principles from high energy physics to understand the formation and expansion of the universe. Inspired by a biophysics course taught at the UT, Austin by Dr. Ernst-Ludwig Florin, Marija chose to implement her quantitative skills to study the microtubule cytoskeleton in the laboratory of Dr. Jonathon Howard, a noted biophysicist then at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. Microtubules are dynamic protein polymers that participate in and drive many essential cellular processes such as cell division. As such, microtubules are a major target for anti-cancer medicines such as taxol and vincristine, natural products which hinder the ability of microtubules to behave in a dynamic fashion. Despite their clinical and biological importance, many aspects of microtubule biophysics – notably their dynamics – remain mysterious. Marija’s post-doctoral work led to several paradigm-shifting papers, published in prestigious journals such as Cell and Nature Cell Biology, which have deepened our understanding of microtubule dynamics. Her work in the Howard lab was supported by a Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Cross-Displinary Fellowship, an award that underscores the highly interdisciplinary nature of her work.
Marija’s transition from the Howard laboratory to Vanderbilt will be aided by a Career Development Award from the HFSP. At Vanderbilt, her own program will apply an interdisciplinary approach, composed of in vitro reconstitution, computation, and theory, to further illuminate the complexities of the microtubule cytoskeleton.
Puck Ohi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology
Vanderbilt University Medical Center