Dr. Nina Vesel recieved prestigious EMBO Postdostoral Fellowship
UL BF
Date of publication:
Dr Nina Vesel of the University of Ljubljana Biotechnical Faculty is the recipient of a prestigious Postdoctoral Fellowship from EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization), aimed at supporting the mobility of postdoctoral researchers in Europe and around the world. This is a major success both for the researcher and for the UL Biotechnical Faculty, which succeeded in attracting back this outstanding researcher.
Dr. Nina Vesel completed her undergraduate studies in Microbiology at the UL Biotechnical Faculty. She graduated in 2014, then went to the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where she gained a master’s degree with distinction ‘cum laude’ in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology.
From 2017 to 2022 she pursued a doctoral degree at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) under the supervision of globally acclaimed Prof. Melanie Blokesch. Her doctoral dissertation was entitled ‘Natural competence of the pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii: an elusive phenomenon’.
In 2023 Dr. Vesel returned to Slovenia and joined the research group ERC Phagecontrol, headed by Dr Anna Dragoš. With the support of Dr Dragoš, Dr Vesel designed a research project for which in December 2023 she was awarded a prestigious EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship is intended for postdoctoral researchers who have gained their PhD within the past two years, they are the lead author of at least one scientific article published in a professional international journal, and they meet the condition for international mobility. The success rate for fellowship applicants averages around 15 percent. Dr Vesel has authored four scientific articles, on two of which she is the lead author, which have been published in the respected international journals Nucleic Acids Research and Journal of Bacteriology. Since Dr Vesel has returned to Slovenia following eight years of study and work abroad, she also met the criterion of international mobility.
Dr Nina Vesel will work in the laboratory of Prof. Dr Anna Dragoš together with other researchers on a study of the interaction between the bacterium Bacillus subtilis and bacterial viruses (bacteriophages). They are specifically interested in lysogenic bacteriophages. These can be implanted in the genetic code of bacteria in the form of genetic information. In this way bacteriophages control certain strategies of bacterial survival, such as sporulation and the creation of biofilm, which are important in stress circumstances, for instance in the absence of nutrients in the environment or in the presence of antibiotics. In the project funded by the EMBO Fellowship, Dr Vesel will develop a system for visualising the inclusion and exclusion of bacteriophage genetic information, which will enable tracing of the dynamics of these processes on the molecular level. In the later stage of the project she will identify the environmental conditions and genetic characteristics of bacteriophages and the bacteria essential for the progress of these processes. The knowledge gained in this will help us to understand how we can use bacteriophages to control bacterial behaviour, which could also later be important in treating bacterial infections or in improving biotechnological processes.
Dr Vesel is a fine example of how we are able to attract back to Slovenia (and the Biotechnical Faculty) outstanding researchers from abroad. The ERC project enabled the employment of Dr Vesel, and ensured excellent infrastructure and the covering of the material costs of her work. This researcher has also brought to the Biotechnical Faculty additional European funds, while at the same time she has gained experience in the competitive applications and interviews for such projects, and she will be glad to share this with other researchers at the Biotechnical Faculty and the University of Ljubljana.
