Staff

Antonio Zandona

PhD / Postdoctoral Researcher

Contact

Place and date of birth

Pula, 9th February 1992

2017 – 2021 PhD, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, study: Chemistry – biochemistry, disertation: Structure – cytotoxicity relationship of oxime reactivators of phosphylated acetylcholinesterase (Mento: M. Katalinić, PhD)
2014 – 2016 MSc, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, study: Molecular biotechnology, thesis: Overexpresion of selected genes and resistance of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae on growth inhibitors (Mentor: I.K. Svetec, PhD)
2010 – 2014 BSc, Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Zagreb, study: Biotechnology, final work: Application of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents to lipase-catalyzed butil acetate synthesis (Mentor: I.R. Redovniković, PhD)

2021 – Postodoctoral Resratcher, Institute for Medical Research and Occupational HeaIth (IMROH), Zagreb, Croatia
2016 – 2021 Research Assistant, PhD student, Institute for Medical Research and Occupational HeaIth (IMROH), Zagreb, Croatia

Influence of oxime reactivators and potential drugs on cell level, mechanisms of toxicity on cell level and activation and/or inhibition of signaling pathways

2021 – 2024. Associate researcher within the national research project „Development of Bioactive Molecules for Neurodegenerative Diseases Treatment; Croatian science foundation grant“ (HrZZ, PI: dr. sc. Anita Bosak)
2020 – 2021. Associate researcher within the project hrvatsko-slovenske bilateralna suradnja „Promjena vijabilnosti mišićnih stanica pod utjecajem oksimskih analoga“ (MZO, PI: dr. sc. Maja Katalinić)
2019 – 2021. Associate researcher within the project of Croatian-Chinese scientific and technological cooperation suradnja „Effects of selected pesticides on neuronal acetylcholinesterase expression; Croatian-chinese scientific and technological cooperation“ (MZO, PI: dr. sc. Z. Kovarik)
2020 – 2021. PI „Evaluation of kinetic parameters and cell effects of new antidotes based on vitamin B6 for the treatment of poisoning by highly toxic organophosphates“ (HAZU)
2018 – 2019. PI „Cell response to exposure to chlorinated bispyridinium compounds“ (HAZU)
2017 – 2023 Suradnik-istraživač na nacionalnom znanstvenom projektu “Molekularni mehanizmi toksičnosti protuotrova i potencijalnih lijekova – CellToxTargets” (HRZZ, voditeljica: dr. sc. Maja Katalinić)

2021 – Training on HBEC-5i human blood-brain barrier model for oxime antidote transport studies: cultivation, integrity and penetration“, 30^th August – 15^th October 2021, Institute for Molecular Medicine, Lisbon, Portugal
2019 – „Training on flow cytometry“, 28^th May – 14^th June 2019, Institute for pathophysiology and Institute for anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2019 – „Training on primary cell cultures, cell lines and protein detection“, 26^th January – 8^th February 2019, Laboratory for molecular neurobiology, Institute for pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Courses and workshops

2020 – „Excellent Lab Book for an Excellent Career“, 17^thand 18^th December 2021, Croatian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and FEBS Workshop on Education
2019 – “Better skills for better jobs: Education and training for successful research careers” FEBS Workshop 25^th and 28^thSeptember 2019, Lovran, Croatia
2019 – “Skeletal muscle research – from cell to human 2019“, 26^th-28^thMay 2019, Workshop, Institute for pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2018 – “Innovative methods and use of technologies in education”, 4^th-5^th April 2018, FEBS Workshop, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Zagreb, Croatia
2017 – “Skeletal muscle research – from cell to human“, 28^th-30^th May 2017, Workshop, Institute for pathophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2021 – Grant to attend the 6th Croatian Congress of Toxiciology, Rabac, Croatia
2020 – EMBO Short Term Fellowship for for foreign training
2020 – Best poster award at Symposium of PhD students of Faculty of Science, Zagreb, Croatia
2019 – Poster award at HDBMB2019 Congress, Lovran, Croatia
2019 – 2^nd best Communication Challenge presentation at FEBS Network, 19^th YSF 2019, Krakow, Poland
2019 – Grant to attend the FEBS 19^th YSF 2019 and 44^th FEBS Congress 2019, Krakow, Poland
2018 – Travel Fellowship for the 13th International Meeting on Cholinesterases and 7th International Conference on Paraoxonases, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic
2016 – Rector’s award – „Influence of a transformation method on a spectum of the recombination events in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae“ (research area: biotechnical – genetics)

Zandona, Antonio; Maraković, Nikola; Mišetić, Petra; Madunić, Josip; Miš, Katarina; Padovan, Jasna; Pirkmajer, Sergej; Katalinić, Maja. Activation of (un)regulated cell death as a new perspective for bispyridinium and imidazolium oximes. Archives of toxicology, 95 (2021), 2737-2754. doi:10.1007/s00204-021-03098-w
Zandona, Antonio; Lihtar, Gabriela; Maraković, Nikola; Miš, Katarina; Bušić, Valentina; Gašo- Sokač, Dajana; Pirkmajer, Segej; Katalinić, Maja. Vitamin B3-Based Biologically Active Compounds as Inhibitors of Human Cholinesterases. International journal of molecular sciences, 21 (2020), 21; 8088, 19. doi:10.3390/ijms21218088
Zandona, Antonio; Katalinić, Maja; Šinko, Goran; Radman Kastelic, Andreja; Primožič, Ines; Kovarik, Zrinka. Targeting Organophosphorus Compounds Poisoning by Novel quinuclidine-3 Oximes: Development of Butyrylcholinesterase-Based Bioscavengers. Archives of toxicology, 94 (2020), 9; 3157-3171. doi:10.1007/s00204-020-02811-5
Zandona, Antonio; Katalinić, Maja. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: Diversity and physiological importance for neurodegenerative disorders and development of organophosphate antidotes. Periodicum biologorum (2020)- doi:10.18054/pb.v121i3-4.10547

2020 – Croatian Society of Toxicology – member
2020 –Member of the Working group for young scientists within the Croatian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
2018 – 2020 – Representative of Assistants to the Scientific Council of the Institute
2017 – Croatian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (HDBMB) – member