PP2: NIB

Description of the organization

Established in 1960, the National Institute of Biology (NIB) is today the leading research institution in the field of biology in Slovenia. The content of research is focused on different areas of biology and medicine The Marine Biology Station within NIB is the leading organizational unit for research on marine ecosystems and is a pioneer in implementing marine biotechnology value chains in Slovenia and the neighbouring regions. We were chairing the largest European network of marine biotechnologists (Ocean4Biotech), have the research programme on marine and microbial biotechnology and are involved in several national and international projects, aiming at developing novel value chains from marine organisms and biomass, to support circularity and innovation in the region. Some of the past and current projects include the research and professional support for the implementation of legislative requirements on the national, European and international legislation

Competences and involvement in 2B-BLUE

• NIB is leading the communication and dissemination activities within 2B-BLUE. NIB is in charge of all internal and external communication, as well visual identity of B-BLUE project and communication channels such as social media.
• We are involved in the design of the good practices collection.
• NIB will implement one of the pilots as the part of the national blue biotechnology hub.
• NIB will assist in building innovation capacity in the organizations of Blue Biotechnology sector by organising various events (of which at least one will be an international one) to showcase the project results by all partners.

Team members

Ana Rotter, PhD
She is a microbiologist with a PhD in statistics at the National Institute of Biology in Slovenia. She is the leader of the national research programme “Marine and microbial biotechnology”, was the leader of Ocean4Biotech and is an EU appointed expert for communication. More.

Katja Klun, PhD
She is an analytical marine chemist with a Ph.D. in Environmental Protection in 2016. She has been working as a researcher at NIB since 2011. Since 2019 she is the head of the Infrastructure center at Marine Biology Station at NIB. Her research is focused on marine organic matter cycling and its chemical and biochemical characterization. She was involved in 5 EU (FP7 and H2020) and 5 national research projects. She was actively involved in the H2020 project GoJelly, where she was leading two tasks for mucus chemical and biochemical characterization and protocol preparation for mucus stability.

Anja Sergaš
Anja is an administrative assistant at National Institute of Biology. She graduated management studies at the University of Primorska. Her work is based on the administrative support of the employees in the organization.

Ernesta Grigalionyte-Bembič
She is a project associate at National Institute of Biology in Slovenia and PhD student in management programme at the University of Primorska (Slovenia). Her activities are focused on the management of EU funded projects. More.

Eylem Atak
In 2018, she graduated from Manisa Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Bioengineering. In 2022, she completed my master’s degree in biotechnology with a focus on the antiviral effects of bioactive substances from microalgae. Currently she is doing PhD at Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School (IPS) and working as a young researcher at Marine Biology Station. Her areas of interest are obtaining bioactive substances from plants and marine organisms.

Luen Zidar
She is a research associate at the National Institute of Biology, Msc of Molecular and Functional Biology (Biotechnical Faculty University of Ljubljana). Her activities are focused on project work on marine biotechnology, circular bioeconomy and laboratory research in the field of marine biotechnology.

Daniel Bosch Ibanez
Daniel is an assistant researcher at the Marine Biology Station Piran, National Institute of Biology, where he studies technological applications of marine organism. Born in Almería, Spain, he carried out doctoral studies on yeast biotechnology at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Later, he worked in cancer biology at the Laboratory of Molecular and Cell Biology, University College London. Daniel has also taught professionally Spanish and English to both teenagers and adults. Finally, he is involved in bird protection as an active member of DOPPS/BirdLife Slovenia.