Profile

Candidate CV questions (extra)

• Education:

  Primary school (first 8 years of my education) was in my home town of Belgrade, which is the capital for a small south-eastern country Serbia. I really enjoyed going to school and would always be excited about it starting after a long summer holidays (in Serbia summers get really hot so we would get ~10 weeks of holidays, from third week of June till 1st September).

  High School – I attended high school which lasted 4 years also in Belgrade. There the focus on Natural Sciences so Mathematics, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. These were my favourite subjects, though I had to study a lot more for Maths and Physics, but I also loved languages and Serbian Literature.

  Graduate studies – I did Molecular Biology and Physiology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and continued there my education up to MSc level after which I moved to UK to do my PhD.

  Postgraduate studies – Doctorate studies is something you do if you are interested in further education and at the end of which you get the title of Dr (Science not, medical) or PhD (Philosophy of Doctorate). I did this at the University of Birmingham and my topic was stress and immunology.

   

• Qualifications:

  Since my education prior to Doctorate studies was in Serbia it is in a bit of a different format than what most of you are used to.

  After primary school, we do not gain any qualifications. We finish it at the age of 14. At this point we do the entry exam into the school we choose, and they can broadly be classified into 2 categories – specialised school after which you are qualified in a specific vocation, or general high school after which you again do not have any qualifications and are expected to continue with the higher education. I went to High School with the focus on Natural Sciences.

  University – this was at the time 4.5 years of study plus 0.5 year for project and thesis writing and we finish with the equivalent to MSc degree.

  Postgraduate studies – as mentioned above, I moved to UK to do the PhD at the University of Birmingham and I have obtained this degree in 2014.

   

   

• Work History:

  I didn’t do a lot of jobs during my studies as I was living with my parents (this is standard situation in Serbia if you live in Belgrade as that is also the biggest University town in the country). I did an odd cleaning job and some tutoring.

  After PhD I worked as Lab Immunologist at KWS Biotest which was a company that was solving immunology related problems for big pharmaceutical companies by testing their drugs and helping them answer specific questions about the way the drugs work. I very much enjoyed my time there and learnt a lot. This was in Bristol and Peter was in Manchester so it was never going to be a long term employment.

  Next step was moving to Manchester and working as flow cytometry support between industry and academia in the area of respiratory immunology. Flow cytometry is laboratory technique that is helping us understand white blood cells better. Respiratory immunology is branch of science interested in diseases that are related to lung and our breathing pathways.

  I then moved to University of Huddersfield and worked in the area of intestinal immunology – this is part of our body related to our gut and is doing a lot to understand problems of diseases such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. In both cases, part of the bowel is inflamed – this means white blood cells are overreacting and causing pain – and it can lead to a lot of unpleasant symptoms such as diarrhoea,  bleeding, abdominal pain, weight loss etc.

  During COVID-19 pandemic I worked in parallel  in one of the so-called Lighthouse laboratories build and organised for testing samples for presence of the virus.

  In August 2021 I left both of these jobs to start my current post as Cancer Immunologist at the University of Manchester .

• Current Job:

  In my current job we are trying to understand how combination therapy that includes radiotherapy and immunotherapy can best be used to fight certain types of cancer. Immunotherapy are small antibody molecules that are blocking specific pathways in immune (white blood) cells and are therefore capable of reprogramming them into better soldiers for fighting cancer. We are investigating tumour microenvironment (which is actually structure of cancer) to understand how to change existing white blood cells into better fighter using these two therapies.

• Employer:

  I am employed by the University of Manchester, and work within School of Medicine and Health, and Division of Cancer Sciences. I am based at Cancer Research UK (CRUK) institute, and have access to all their facilities which makes it a very exciting place to work. I am based at the Institute that is right next to Christie Hospital, which is the largest cancer hospital in the country. These three institutions – University, CRUK and Christie in such close proximity make it really exciting place to be and fight cancer.