Anja Kovanda

Anja Kovanda, PhD: is a researcher working on changes in miRNA of muscle tissue due to hypoxia and bedrest at Institute 'Jozef Stefan'. Anja has formerly worked at the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana,Slovenia as a young researcher and has completed both her BSc in Microbiology and her PhD in Biomedicine at the Biotechnical faculty of the University of Ljubljana. Her work includes genotyping of low- and high-risk human papillomaviruses (HPV) and HPV infection with cancer, identification and characterization of novel HPV genotypes HPV-125, HPV-150 and HPV-151, drug resistance testing of human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) and the hepatitis viruses. In addition to viruses capable of causing cancer, her interests include viral evolution and human mutations affecting response to infection or treatment. Her work also includes the development of a real-time test to detect human polymorphism rs12979860 IL28B, which is involved in hepatitis C treatment response. For this work she has recently been awarded the ‘Golden Chromosome Award 2012’ by the Genetic Society of Slovenia.