Jelena Begovic, Minister of Science, Technological Development and Innovations – Loves Africa and Working with the Most Dangerous Viruses

Jelena Begovic, who has been appointed the head of the newly formed Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovations, has come to that position from the position of the director of the Institute for Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, where she has spent her career.

She was born in 1970 in Belgrade, although, as she told the Naj Zena portal last summer, she was “almost born in Addis Ababa, where my parents had met”.

– Very soon after I was born, we returned to Ethiopia, where I spent the first years of my life – Begovic said and added that she had a strong emotional bond with Africa.

In Belgrade, she finished the “Drinka Pavlovic” Elementary School, and then also high school, what was then the Eighth Belgrade Gymnasium, and enrolled at the Faculty of Chemistry. However, after the freshman year, she switched to the Faculty of Biology, from which she graduated, after two years spent at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

According to her, she had always known that she would be a researcher, but until high school, she had wanted to be an archaeologist.

She received her magister degree in 2002, and in 2008, she defended her PhD dissertation in molecular genetics at the Faculty of Biology. Since 2018, she has also had the title of a research fellow.

She has worked at the Institute for Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering of the University of Belgrade since 1998, and she has been the institution’s director since 2014.

An interesting anecdote remains from the period when she got employed at the Institute:

– At the job interview, they asked me what I would like to do. My answer was that I would like to work with the most dangerous viruses, to which everybody laughed and said that they could offer me to work with bacteria, and to forget about the viruses. It remained an anecdote until 2020, when the pandemic started and when, together with my scientist colleagues, I built and developed the Vatreno Oko laboratories for the CARSCoV-2 virus testing in Belgrade and Nis – Begovic said in her interview for Naj Zena.

Over more than 20 years, the new science minister did research work in the fields of molecular genetics and biotechnology and published more than 60 scientific works in leading international magazines. She is an active member of numerous science associations.

Since 2011, she has represented Serbia within the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, founded by the UN, through which funds for the financing of science projects and education of students from Serbia have been secured for years.

Her message is that “education, and only education, is what’s most important, especially for women”:

– Education in Serbia is still good and relatively free and that should be used. Science, whether it’s social or natural fields, provides you with a kind of freedom to work and think, which is a big and important thing for all aspects of life, but also society – Dr Begovic said in her interview for Naj Zena.

In her official biography, the new minister also points out that, during her scientific career, she has taken part in numerous projects of cooperation with the economy, including both local and foreign companies, and she was also involved in the drafting of the Strategy of Smart Specialization of Serbia.

Last year, she participated in the founding of the Center for Sequencing and Bioinformatics at the Institute, which enabled Serbia to start forming a national bank of genome data.

Also, Jelena Begovic was one of the people behind the creation of the BIO4 campus, which will gather research entrepreneurs and companies around the idea of the development of biomedicine and biotechnology in Serbia.

In her free time, which, as she said for Naj Zena “is slipping away” after a day of a hard work, she likes to have at least a quick cup of coffee, a glass of good wine and have dinner in a home environment.

– Aikido used to be a great pleasure of mine. I trained for six years, 4-5 times a week. I was very dedicated and that martial art truly kept my mind and body in perfect shape. I have even retained some philosophical principles of this skill and I implement them in everyday life. But I have no time to train anymore. In addition to that, I see people who I love, my daughter, my partner, my family and friends, less. Sometimes I think I work too hard, but it’s stronger than me – Begovic said.

Ministarstvo nauke, tehnološkog razvoja i inovacija Republike Srbije

Institut za molekularnu genetiku i genetičko inženjerstvo

Biološki fakultet Beograd

Hemijski fakultet Beograd

UN International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology

BIO4 campus

Center for Sequencing and Bioinformatics

jelena Begovic

new science minister

biographies

Jelena Begovic biography

Drinka Pavlovic Elementary School

Eighth Belgrade Gymnasium

University of British Columbia in Canada

molecular genetics

biotechnology

genetic engineering

biomedicine

Vatreno Oko laboratory