Researcher

Associate Professor Ozren Bogdanovic

Keywords

Fields of Research (FoR)

Epigenetics (incl. Genome Methylation and Epigenomics), Animal Developmental and Reproductive Biology, Developmental Genetics (incl. Sex Determination), Bioinformatics

Biography

Ozren Bogdanovic is a Lab Head at the  Garvan Institute of Medical Research.  Ozren obtained his PhD from Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), where he worked on DNA methylation and methyl CpG-binding proteins during early embryogenesis in the lab of Gert Jan Veenstra. Ozren then moved to the Andalusian Centre for Developmental Biology (CABD, Seville - Spain) to work with Jose Luis Gomez-Skarmeta and Juan Ramon Martinez-Morales on...view more

Ozren Bogdanovic is a Lab Head at the  Garvan Institute of Medical Research.  Ozren obtained his PhD from Radboud University (Nijmegen, the Netherlands), where he worked on DNA methylation and methyl CpG-binding proteins during early embryogenesis in the lab of Gert Jan Veenstra. Ozren then moved to the Andalusian Centre for Developmental Biology (CABD, Seville - Spain) to work with Jose Luis Gomez-Skarmeta and Juan Ramon Martinez-Morales on various aspects of embryonic gene regulation. There he led a number of developmental genetics projects and participated in the adaptation of next-generation sequencing technologies to vertebrate embryonic material. In 2013 Ozren started his postdoctoral studies at the University of Western Australia in the laboratory of Ryan Lister where he conducted research in the field of developmental and evolutionary epigenomics. His work at UWA includes the discovery of a highly conserved epigenome remodeling event associated with vertebrate body plan formation. Ozren joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research as a Lab Head in February 2017. At the Garvan Ozren is applying integrative approaches to study the contribution of the epigenome to vertebrate embryogenesis and cancer formation.


My Qualifications

2012 – PhD (Molecular Biology) Radboud University Nijmegen - the Netherlands
2004 – BSc / MSc (Molecular Biology) University of Zagreb - Croatia


My Awards

2017 - Millennium Science Award
2017 - Raine Research Prize
2016 - UWA Early Career Researcher Vice Chancellor’s Award
2016 - UWA Research Collaboration Award
2015 - UWA Research Collaboration Award
2014 - ECR Award to attend the annual meeting of the Australian Academy of Sciences
2014 - Cell Symposia – Transcriptional Regulation in Development, Poster Presentation Award 
2013 - ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA)
2013 - EMBO travel grant
2003 - IAESTE internship to work at Friedrich Miescher Institute (Basel, CH)


My Research Activities

How a complex, multicellular organism develops from a single fertilized egg is among the most intriguing concepts in biology. This phenomenon is further augmented by the fact that metazoan organisms consist of many distinct cell types that largely differ in their morphology, function and gene expression patterns, yet contain identical genomic DNA. Nowadays, we know that such a vast variety of cell types is generated and maintained by mechanisms that in most cases do not involve alterations in the primary DNA sequence. Such epigenetic mechanisms include (but are not limited to): DNA methylation, post-translational modifications of histone tails, long non-coding RNA and nucleosome positioning. The development of massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies has facilitated the generation of precise epigenome maps corresponding to myriad cell-lines, tissues and disease samples with the aim of deciphering the epigenomic component of diverse cellular forms and functions.

The research in the Bogdanović lab aims to understand the contributions of the epigenome to embryonic development, cell differentiation and disease. We are particularly interested in how DNA methylation patterns are established, maintained and altered during those processes. Our interest in DNA methylation stems from the fact that this epigenetic mark can be stably propagated through cell division and that the presence or absence of DNA methylation correlates well with the activity of regulatory regions. Finally, a vast wealth of studies has demonstrated strong links between DNA methylation and various disease phenotypes suggestive of its potential applicability as a biomarker.


My Research Supervision


Areas of supervision

PhD, Honours


Currently supervising

PhD

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Location

Garvan Institute of Medical Research
384 Victoria Street
Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010

Contact

+61 (02) 9295 8340