Janja Marc

Prof.Dr. Janja Marc, EuSpLM. is full professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Biomedicine at University of Ljubljana and head of Laboratory for molecular diagnostics at Faculty of Pharmacy. She is the coordinator of master and PhD study Laboratory Biomedicine and the coordinator of international CEEPUS student exchange network SI-0611. She was the tutor to 11 PhD thesis and over 130 diploma/master thesis. Her research work include 18 national or international research projects, in some of them as the project leader and the leadership of Slovenian group in the international consortium GENOMOS. Her research group is focused on bone biology and metabolic proceses in adipose tissue in humans in order to clarifying the genetic backgrounds of complex diseases like osteoporosis, osteoarthrosis, insulin resistance, obesity, heart failure and also lung cancer. With approach of genotype-phenotype association studies and later with genome-wide analyses of the expression profiles her group identified important molecules and pathways in this diseases, which could be further investigate as new diagnostic or therapeutic targets. One of her last project is focused on epigenetic factors and micro RNA in bone and other diseases. As a part, in the pharmacogenetic studies she is studing the genetic variations in UDP glucoronyl-transferase gene on raloxifene metabolism and ion transporters genes on imatinib resistance as well as different TPMT variants at tiopurin tretments in inflamatory bowel diseases. Her research resulted in 104 published scientific papers with over 1250 citations (h-index 17). She was actively involved in organisation of numerous national and international meetings, in 2012 she organised successful ESPT European Summer School on pharmacogenomics and personalised therapy in Ljubljana. She was head of Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Faculty of Pharmacy (2005-2013), chair of  Laboratory diagnostics advisory board at Ministry of health RS (2009-2010) and chair of Committee for licencing and education at Slovenian Laboratory Medicine Chamber (2006-2015). She is the member of editorial boards of four international journals and member of working group for Personalized Laboratory Medicine at European Federation for Laboratory Medicine. Since 2012 she is serving as general secretary at European Society of Pharmacognomics and Personalized Therapy.