Dr. Nataša Veličković

Dr. Nataša Veličković was born on November 4, 1971 in Belgrade. She completed her bachelor's degrees, Master's and Doctoral studies at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, in 1996, 2001 and 2009, respectively. She was employed at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences "Vinča" (1996 – 2010), and since 2010, she has been employed at the Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković" at the Department of Biochemistry. The main research field of Dr. Veličković's is examination of pathophysiological changes of energy metabolism in animal models of metabolic syndrome and in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), with a focus on lipid and glucose metabolism disturbances. The main research topics are characterization of animal models of metabolic syndrome, investigation of molecular mechanisms of lipid metabolism disorders, inflammation and insulin sensitivity in adipose tissue and liver, examination of lipid and metabolite profiles in patients with MASLD, study of the role of microbiota in metabolic disorders related to excessive caloric diets and MASLD. A special research focus is on examining the role of glucocorticoid hormones in metabolic disorders linked to obesity and fatty liver disease. As postdoctoral researchers, Dr. Veličković spent two weeks at the Department of Physiology of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (2017). Dr. Veličković is a recipient of a fellowship for a successful master's thesis (1996-1997) and award for an outstanding research contribution (2003) from the Ministry of Science and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Serbia, recipient of a scholarship from IBRO (2003), CASCADE Network of Excellence (2005) and FEBS Society (2009) for participation in workshops and congresses. She was participant in a Joint research project of Serbia and Switzerland SCOPES (project number IZ73Z0_152331) (2014-2017). Dr. Veličković is the coordinator of the HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-02 Twinning call entitled "Strengthening Translational Research for Improved Metabolic Health" (STRIMHealth) (project number 101159400) (2024-2027).