Vuk-Pavlović Stanimir
Academic titles:
- doctor of Science
Membership in Academy:
- corresponding member – Department of Natural Sciences (01/30/1997 – …)
Curriculum Vitae
Stanimir Vuk-Pavlović is a native of Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated from the Classical Gymnasium in Zagreb and majored in Biology at the University of Zagreb. Under the supervision of Dr. Siniša Maričić, the founder of Croatian biophysics, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Zagreb in 1975. As a European Molecular Biology Organization Fellow he was a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Israel Pecht at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel on several occasions between 1976 and 1980.
Before leaving to the United States, Vuk-Pavlović worked at the Institute of Immunology in Zagreb and taught biophysics to physics majors at the University of Zagreb. As a fellow of the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada he spent the winter of 1982/83 at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. From January 1984 he has been at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, United States of America. Today he is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and a full member of the Mayo Graduate School. In addition, he is a member of the Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, of Department of Oncology, and of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. As Director, Stem Cell Laboratory, National Cancer Institute-Designated Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, he develops methods in support of cellular therapies, particularly of transplantation of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells and cellular immunotherapy of malignant diseases.
Vuk-Pavlović is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, American Society of Biochemists and Molecular Biologists, American Society of Hematology, International Society for Cell Therapy and other professional associations. In Croatia he was a member of the Croatian Society of Science. He served on the Society’s board of directors from 1978 until 1983 and was its vice president at the time of departure to the United States. He is an honorary adviser to the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb and a corresponding (foreign) member of the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Pliva the Croatian pharmaceutical industry and of the Institute of Medical Biomathematics, Tel Aviv, Israel. For his humanitarian and political contribution to the War of Croatian Independence he was awarded the Presidential Orders of Croatian Weave and of Croatian Morningstar (Danitsa) with the Likeness of Katarina Zrinska.
From 1976 to 1984 Vuk-Pavlović was a member of the editorial board of the Priroda, the popular science magazine of the Croatian Society of Science; in 1980/81 he served as its editor-in-chief. Since 1978 he has played various roles in editing of the Periodicum biologorum, the scientific journal of the Croatian Society of Science. Together with Prof Želiko Kućan he translated into Croatian the second edition of Biochemistry by Lubert Stryer (Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1991). He is a member of the advisory board of the Croatian Medical Journal and edited numerous scientific publications. He reviews for scientific journals such as Blood, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, Cancer Research, Endocrinology, Journal of Andrology, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Gastroenterology, Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Life Sciences and others. Recently he initiated the Mayo Clinic and University of Zagreb Program in Advanced Medical Education (http://www.mayo-zagreb-advancedmedicaleducation.com ) that aims to provide a forum for graduate academic exchange between the United States and Central Europe.
Vuk-Pavlović’s scientific interests began with the application of nuclear magnetic resonance and other physical-chemical methods in the studies of structure and function of biomacromolecules (hemoproteins, immunoglobulins). Collaborating with Prof. Krešimir Pavelić and Prof. Željko Bajzer he studied humoral mechanisms of regulation of tumor growth by biochemical, biological and mathematical methods. Observations in the area of cell kinetics led Vuk-Pavlović into the studies of receptor-mediated endocytosis and quantitative analysis of the interactions of halogenated pyrimidines and hormone derivatives in three-dimensional tumor models by nuclear magnetic resonance. Since 1996 he has dedicated his efforts to cell and tissue engineering in developing new methods for immunotherapy of malignant disease and transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells.