The activities of the Golden Helix Foundation are supervised by an international scientific advisory council, consisting of world leaders in the field of translational medicine. Currently, the international Scientific Advisory Council consists of 9 members.
MEET THE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COUNCIL (https://www.goldenhelix.org/scientific-advisory-council/)
We are more than pleased to welcome on the Council 3 new members! More specifically, we welcome:
Marc. S. Williams
Marc. S. Williams, MD,FAAP,FACMG,FACMI is a clinical geneticist. He is professor and director emeritus of Geisinger’s Department of Genomic Health. He served as the co-PI of the Geisinger eMERGE project and was the medical director of Geisinger’s undiagnosed disease genome sequencing clinical research project. His current research is focused on the implementation of genomic and precision medicine. He serves on the NHGRI Genomic Medicine working group. He has participated in the Personalized Medicine Workgroup of the Department of Health and Human Services’ American Health Information Community Task Force and was a member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee for Genetics, Health and Society.
He was a member of the EGAPP working group. He is a member of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Board of Directors, serving as Vice-President for Clinical Genetics, then rejoined the board in 2019 serving for six years, including President from 2021-2023. He is past chair of the ACMG Committee on the Economics of Genetic Services and founded the ACMG Quality Improvement Special Interest Group. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Clinical Pharmacogenetic Implementation Consortium, the NIH Undiagnosed Diseases Project, and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man. He has authored over 250 articles on a variety of topics including the economic evaluation and value of genetic services, implementation of genomic medicine, and the use of informatics to facilitate genomic medicine and precision health.
Branka Zukić
Dr. Branka Zukić is a Full Research Professor at the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade, and the Head of the Group for Molecular Biomedicine. Her research focuses on the molecular basis of health and disease and translational biomedicine, with a strong emphasis on the implementation of personalized medicine based on patients’ individual genomes into clinical practice. More specifically, her work investigates the influence of pharmacogenetic variants on the efficacy and toxicity of chemotherapy in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, inflammatory bowel disease, systemic sclerosis, and COVID-19. She also conducts comprehensive genomic profiling in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma and works on identifying molecular markers for disease stratification, prognosis, and treatment optimization in hematological malignancies. Her research integrates bioinformatics and machine learning tools for therapy monitoring and the design of predictive genetic testing panels.
Dr. Zukić is currently the PI of PharmGenHUB, a HE-funded project dedicated to advancing population pharmacogenomics in the Western Balkan region. Also, she is a coordinator of Serbian excellence hub team of HE-funded InnoThyroGen project, focused on innovating thyroid health with genomics and predictive algorithms. She has more than 55 publications and h-index 22. In addition to her research activities, she has been actively involved in molecular diagnostics of rare diseases in Serbia, applying high-throughput sequencing technologies.
Sonja Pavlovic
Dr Sonja Pavlovic received her PhD degree in Molecular Genetics from the University of Belgrade. She is a Full Research Professor at the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering University of Belgrade (IMGGE). She is a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences in Serbia. Dr Sonja Pavlovic was a founder and the head of the Laboratory for Molecular Hematology and the Laboratory for Molecular Biomedicine in IMGGE. She was a coordinator of numerous projects funded by EU, pharmaceutical companies and the Ministry of Science Republic of Serbia. She has introduced numerous molecular genetic diagnostic tests in medical practice in Serbia, and she heads the Center for Genetic Diagnostics of Rare Diseases. Research interests of dr Sonja Pavlovic are precision medicine, molecular genetics of rare diseases, hematological malignancies and pharmacogenomics. She has authored more than 200 articles in distinguished international journals. She is also an author of several chapters in books for medical students and professionals, as well as an author of two books dedicated to molecular genetics in medicine. She is a member of the Editorial board of several journals and an Editor in Chief of annual scientific article collection “Trends in Molecular Biology”. Teaching activities of dr Sonja Pavlovic include seminars and courses at the Faculty of Biology, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade. She has been the supervisor of more than 50 master and doctoral theses.
