Gregor Majdič
A researcher, teacher, writer, co-founder and technical director of the company Animacel. He is also the rector of the University of Ljubljana (UL).
Prof. Dr Gregor Majdič gained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the UL Veterinary Faculty, then continued studying at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he gained a doctorate in reproductive endocrinology.
After his doctorate he spent another three years doing post-doctoral training at one of the best medical faculties in the world, the Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas, and was a guest for one month at the Keio University in Tokyo.
He lectures at the Veterinary Faculty and the Biotechnical Faculty of UL, and is also a full professor of physiology at the Medical Faculty in Maribor and a permanent guest professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Zagreb.
He is employed in the Institute for Preclinical Science at the Veterinary Faculty, where he researches the fields of neuroendocrinology, hormone disruptors and stem cell treatment. He studies the differences between female and male brains, the influence of various factors on brain development such as genes, hormones and stress, and also studies how hormone disruptors affect the development and functioning of sexual organs. In his career he has published 112 articles, which have been cited more than 2,000 times.
He founded the company Animacel, one of the first companies in the world to offer stem cell treatment for domestic animals. He has also spread his good working practices abroad, and now collaborates with more than 60 animal clinics worldwide. He has received numerous awards for his successful work. He received an award at the technology transfer conference at the Jožef Stefan Institute, and also the Rector’s prize for the best innovation at the University of Ljubljana, which he shared with colleague Katerina Čeh.
In his free time he likes to travel, write, play sports and cook, as well as spreading scientific knowledge among people. He has his own blog, on which he regularly posts. He has also appeared a number of times on Slovenian television.
He is the author of numerous popular science articles and has written three books: Skrivnost življenja (The Mystery of Life), Gabrielov pasijon (Gabriel’s Passion) and Beli Saracen (The White Saracen). In 2004 he received the Delo newspaper prize for the best writer of popular science articles. Some critics compared his literary work Gabriel’s Passion to the famous novel Name of the Rose by the Italian writer Umberto Eco.