Biography
Ljiljana completed her studies in chemistry at the University of Zagreb and obtained PhD in SERS and biospectroscopy from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. She was then awarded Humboldt Fellowship followed by Marie Curie Fellowship to conduct postdoctoral research in enzyme reconstitution and nanomaterial biofunctionalisation in Prof. C. Niemeyer’s group at the University of Dortmund. After being group leader at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for 7 years, she took on the lectureship in bionanotechnology at the University of Cambridge in 2015. Her research interest is the use of bio and nanoelements to design materials for catalysis and tissue engineering. This involves development of new types of light responsive structures, DNA modification and application beyond genetics as well as protein modification and structuring.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.
Research
Use of synthetic chemistry, molecular biology and various instrumental techniques to design bio-nano elements and hybrid materials for application in catalysis and medicine. This includes such research topics as protein modification and structuring, artificial enzyme design, DNA modification and applications beyond genetics (DNA based memory devices) and preparation of nano composite and light responsive materials.
Publications
1. L. Stolzer, A. Vigovskaya, C. Barner-Kowollik, Lj. Fruk, A Self Reporting Tetrazole Based Linker for the Biofunctionalization of Gold Nanorods, Chemistry-A Eur. J. 2015, DOI: 10.1002/chem.201502070
2. C. Garcia-Astrain, C. Chen, M. Buron, T. Palomares, A. Eceiza, Lj. Fruk, M. Angeles Corcuera, N. Gabilondo, Biocompatible Hydrogel Nanocomposite with Covalently Embedded Silver Nanoparticles, Biomacromolecules 2015, 16(4), 1301
3. D. Kendziora, I. Ahmed, Lj. Fruk, Multifunctional Linker for Orthogonal Decoration of Gold Nanoparticles with DNA and proteins, RCS Advances 2014, 4(35), 17980.
4. M. Miljevic, B. Geiseler, T. Bergfeldt, P. Brockstaller, Lj. Fruk, Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity of Au/TiO2 Nanocomposite Prepared Using Bifunctional Bridging Linker, Adv. Funct. Mater 2014, 24(7), 1028
5. C. Cheng, I. Ahmed, Lj. Fruk, Reactive Oxygen Species Production by Catechol Stabilized Copper Nanoparticles, Nanoscale 2013, 11610.
6. G. Shtenberg, N. Massad-Ivanir, O. Moscowitz, S. Engin, M. Sharon, Lj. Fruk, E. Segal, Picking up the Pieces, A Generic Porous Si Biosensor for Probing the Proteolytic Products of Enzymes, Anal. Chem. 2013, 85(3), 1951
7. Yu-Chueh Hung, Wei-Ting Hsu, Ting-Yu Lin, Lj. Fruk, Photoinduced write- once read-many-times memory device based on DNA biopolymer composite, Appl. Phys. Lett. 2011, 253301
8. F. Bano, Lj. Fruk, B. Sanavio, M. Glettenberg, L. Casalis, C. M. Niemeyer, G. Scoles, Towards Multiprotein Nanochips Using Nanografting and DNA Directed Immobilization of Proteins, Nano Lett. 2009, 9(7), 2614
9. Lj. Fruk, C. M.Niemeyer, Covalent Hemin-DNA Adducts for Generating a Novel Class of Artifical Heme Enzymes. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 2603.
10. Lj. Fruk, A. Grondin, D. Graham, E.W. Smith, A Novel Approach to Oligonucleotide Labelling Using Diels Alder Cycloadditons and SERRS, Chem. Commun, 2002, 2100
