Renowned molecular biologist Dr. Ivan Đikić held a lecture on the topic of Scientific Creativity and Innovation at RIT Croatia in Dubrovnik

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We had the privilege of hosting Dr. Ivan Đikić, one of the most prominent Croatian scientists at our Dubrovnik campus on Friday, October 13. Dr. Đikić held a very inspiring lecture about scientific creativity and innovation to students, faculty and staff of both campuses, as our Zagreb campus was connected via audio/video Polycom system. The lecture was interactive and guided mostly by questions coming from the audience, and Dr. Đikić made an effort to depict his scientific journey and to share some inspiring thoughts for the future. He emphasized the importance of preserving the "integrity of you" in every aspect of both professional and personal life path in order to fully reach the potential. Through developing oneself one should not be limited but on the contrary, once should be open to lifelong collection of knowledge in many disciplines. Dr. Đikić also made an interesting comparison of educational systems in Croatia, USA, Sweden and Germany and the main conclusion is the importance of investing in education that should be free of political impact and demagogies. As Dr. Đikić said, "the society image is the image of its educational system". When asked how he deals with creative crisis, Dr. Đikić replied: "you have to learn from crisis; not panic but to try and navigate you way through the crisis, to talk, to discuss in order to find the way to overcome the obstacles. Think deeply, face problems and look for the support of the environment, both at your work and privately".

Dr. Đikić was invited to hold a guest lecture at RIT Croatia by Dr. Marlena Ćukteraš, who is teaching Environmental Science course at the Dubrovnik campus and is an active member of "Association for Promoting Natural Sciences" in Dubrovnik.

More about the guest lecturer:

Dr. Ivan Đikić is a Croatian molecular biologist who is the Director of the Institute of Biochemistry II at Goethe University Frankfurt. In 1991, he earned his M.D. degree from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Zagreb. After finishing his medical studies he continued to pursue his Ph.D. thesis in molecular biology at the University of Zagreb and at the New York University School of Medicine until 1997. He continued to work as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Joseph Schlessinger in New York from 1995 to 1997 before starting his own group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Uppsala, Sweden. In 2002, Ivan was appointed as a Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt. He followed in Werner Müller-Esterl (de)'s footsteps as Director of the Institute of Biochemistry II in 2009. In addition, Ivan Đikić was the first Scientific Director (2009 - 2013) of the Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, a cross-faculty, interdisciplinary institute at Goethe University which was founded as part of the Cluster of Excellence Macromolecular Complexes. He is speaker of the Collaborative Research Center 1177 on selective autophagy, and speaker of the LOEWE program "Ubiquitin Networks".

Dr. Đikić's research focuses on deciphering molecular mechanisms of cellular signaling pathways, which have a high relevance to human diseases such as cancer, neurodegenerative disorders and inflammation.