Ivan Đikić

Scientific career

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'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".

Ivan Đikić holds strong links to his homeland Croatia. He has an affiliation as Professor with the School of Medicine University of Split, where he established an outstation lab in Split University and transferring technologies to Croatia. In addition, Đikić has been recognized by one of the highest civilian honours, The Order of Duke Branimir, bestowed by the President of Croatia.

Đikić is member of several academic societies, including the number of organizations including the European Molecular Biology Organization (since 2004), the World Academy of Art and Science (since 2008), German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2010), the Croatian Academy of Medical Science, and the European Academy of Sciences.

Research

Ivan 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. Early on, he started to focus on ubiquitin to understand how this modification controls multiple cellular functions, and managed to prove a concept of ubiquitin signal recognition by specialized domains serving as specific receptors. More recently, his team has revealed the functions of linear ubiquitin chains in pathogen defense and overall immune response. He expanded his research to the field of selective autophagy, recognizing the enormous impact of the LC3/GABARAP signaling network displaying striking mechanistic similarities to ubiquitin. One major focus is on the crosstalk between autophagy and endocytic machineries, and in this context he has gained fundamental insight in autophagic processes at the endoplasmic reticulum (ER-phagy).

Education

Ivan Đikić is strongly dedicated to scientific exchange and education, and has contributed to the organization of many international conferences and workshops. In 1998, he initiated the series of Dubrovnik Cell Signalling Conferences, which has been sponsored by EMBO continuously since 2004. Moreover, he is actively involved in organization of EMBO Meetings (Ubiquitin Meetings in 2015, 2013; Autophagy Meeting 2011, Cellular Microbiology/Cell Biology Meeting in 2010, 2008), EMBO Courses (2012, 2010, 2008, 2006 on Ubiquitin/SUMO; 2010 on Ubiquitin & DNA damage) as well as Keystone and CSH Meetings. In July 2016, he was hosting the Frankfurt Conference on Ubiquitin and Autophagy together with Volker Dötsch, Hubert Serve and Heide Genau.

Publications

Ivan Đikić is author to numerous publications in high impact scientific journals. A full list of his contributions can be found here.