Petra Grbčić, mag. pharm. inv. is currently a PhD student at doctoral study ”Medicinal Chemistry” under supervision of associate professor Mirela Sedić and research assistant on "Bioprospecting of Adriatic sea" project at the University of Rijeka Department of Biotechnology (Laboratory for systems biomedicine and genomics, laboratory head: associate professor Sandra Kraljević Pavelić). Her skills in maintaining cell cultures, in vitro cell viability assays, detection of apoptosis, migration and invasion studies, cell motility and development of chemoresistant cell lines, as well as techniques for protein isolation, purification, quantification and detection of their expression by Western blot method, two dimensional electrophoresis (2DE)  and mass spectrometry analysis were developed by working on several different projects in the Laboratory for systems biomedicine and genomics at Department of Biotechnology. The area of scientific interest of P. Grbčić mostly includes sphingolipids in therapy and pathogenesis of cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma and colorectal carcinoma), and sphingolipid involvement in chemoresistance development. She attended the 11^th International Central European Oncology Congress where she held an oral presentation entitled „Sphingosine kinase inhibition sensitizes hepatocellular carcinoma cells to chemotherapy“ in 2015. In 2016, she participated in the 14th Gordon Research Conference Glycolipid and Sphingolipid Homeostasis and Function in Health and Disease in Tuscany, Italy with a poster presentation entitled „Dual inhibition of sphingosine kinase 1⁄2 enhances antitumor activity of 5-fluoruracil in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro“. She was awarded the best oral presentation entitled “Acid ceramidase activity regulates the sensitivity of human colon cancer cells to oxaliplatin” on 13^th International Central European Oncology Congress in 2017. In addition, her experimental work was presented on 5 poster presentations on national and international congresses. She has authored 8 original scientific papers and 2 review papers in peer-reviewed journals that have been cited 100 times (h-index 5; i10-index 3).

She is a collaborator on the University of Rijeka research grant uniri-biomed-18-76 Molecular features associated with BRAFV600E-mutated versus wild type BRAF colorectal cancer and a research assistant on project: “Dissecting the mechanisms of therapy resistance in BRAF-mutant colon cancer using an integrated –omics approach” founded by Croatian Science Fundation.

She was recognized as the best young scientist in University of Rijeka for academic year 2017. and won a scholarship to attend BIOPROSP_19 conference in Tromso, Norway.  She has also attended „The InnoMol New Platforms for Molecular Solutions in Research and Development“ workshop on Ruđer Bošković institute, Zagreb and training on Olympus microscopes.

 Research papers:

1. Petra Grbčić and Mirela Sedić. Sphingosine 1-Phosphate Signaling and Metabolism in Chemoprevention and Chemoresistance in Colon Cancer. Molecules 2020, 25(10), 2436. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25102436
   
2. Valentina Rep, Martina Piškor, Helena Šimek, Petra Mišetić, Petra Grbčić, Jasna Padovan, Vesna Gabelica Marković, Dijana Jadreško, Krešimir Pavelić, Sandra Kraljević Pavelić, Silvana Raić-MalićPurine and Purine Isostere Derivatives of Ferrocene: An Evaluation of ADME, Antitumor and Electrochemical Properties. Molecules 2020, 25(7), 1570. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules25071570
3. Grbčić P, Car EPM, Sedić M. Targeting Ceramide Metabolism in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: New Points for Therapeutic Intervention. Curr Med Chem. 2019 Sep 11. doi: 10.2174/0929867326666190911115722.
4. Sedić, Mirela; Grbčić, Petra; Kraljević Pavelić, Sandra; Bioactive Sphingolipids as Biomarkers Predictive of Disease Severity and Treatment Response in Cancer: Current Status and Translational Challenges; Anticancer Research39: 41-56(2019) doi:10.21873/anticanres.13078
5. Klobučar, Marko*; Grbčić, Petra*; Kraljević Pavelić, Sandra; Jonjić, Nives; Visentin, Sarah; Sedić, Mirela. Acid ceramidase inhibition sensitizes human colon cancer cells to oxaliplatin through downregulation of transglutaminase 2 and β1 integrin/FAK-mediated signalling. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2018 Jun 21. pii: S0006-291X(18)31397-4. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.06.085. (*equal contribution) IF 2.559
6. Racané, Livio; Ptiček, Lucija; Sedić, Mirela; Grbčić, Petra; Kraljević Pavelić, Sandra; Bertoša, Branimir; Sović, Irena; Karminski- Zamola, Grace. Eco-friendly synthesis, in vitro anti- proliferative evaluation and 3D-QSAR analysis of a novel series of monocationic 2- aryl/heteroaryl-substituted 6-(2- imidazolinyl)benzothiazole mesylates // Molecular diversity (2018)
7. Bistrović, Andrea*; Grbčić, Petra*; Harej, Anja; Sedić, Mirela; Kraljević Pavelić, Sandra; Koštrun, Sanja; Plavec, Janez; Makuc, Damjan; Raić-Malić, Silvana. Small molecule purine and pseudopurine derivatives: synthesis, cytostatic evaluations and investigation of growth inhibitory effect in non-small cell lung cancer A549. J Enzyme Inhib Med Chem. 2018 Dec;33(1):271-285. doi: 10.1080/14756366.2017.1414807. (*equal contribution) IF 4.293
8. Andrea Bistrović, Luka Krstulović, Anja Harej, Petra Grbčić, Mirela Sedić*, Sanja Koštrun, Sandra Kraljević Pavelić, Miroslav Bajić, Silvana Raić-Malić* Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of novel benzimidazole amidines as potent multi-target inhibitors for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, Eur J Med Chem. 2017 Nov 10. pii: S0223-5234(17)30863-2. doi:10.1016/j.ejmech.2017.10.061. IF 4.519
9. Andrea Bistrović, Anja Harej, Petra Grbčić, Mirela Sedić, Sandra Kraljević Pavelić, Mario Cetina, Silvana Raić-Malić*. Synthesis and cytostatic evaluations of mono- and bis-purinomimetics targeting kinases, Int J Mol Sci. 2017 Nov;18(11):2292. doi:10.3390/ijms18112292. IF 3.226
10. Grbčić P, Tomljanović I, Klobučar M, Kraljević Pavelić S, Lučin K, Sedić, M. Dual sphingosine kinase inhibitor SKI-II enhances sensitivity to 5-fluorouracil in hepatocellular carcinoma cells via suppression of osteopontin and FAK/IGF-1R signalling. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2017 Apr 19. IF 2.466
11. Gregorić T, Sedić M, Grbčić P, Tomljenović Paravić A, Kraljević Pavelić S, Cetina M, Vianello R, Raić-Malić S. Novel pyrimidine-2,4- dione-1,2,3- triazole and furo[2,3-d]pyrimidine- 2-one- 1,2,3-triazole hybrids as potential anti-cancer agents: Synthesis, computational and X-ray analysis and biological evaluation. Eur J Med Chem. 2017 Jan 5;125:1247-1267. doi:10.1016/j.ejmech.2016.11.028. IF 4.519
12. Jelovica, Mateo; Grbčić, Petra; Mušković, Martina; Sedić, Mirela; Pavelić, Sandra Kraljević; Lončarić, Martin; Malatesti, Nela; In Vitro Photodynamic Activity of N-Methylated and N-Oxidised Tripyridyl Porphyrins with Long Alkyl Chains and Their Inhibitory Activity in Sphingolipid Metabolism // ChemMedChem, 13 (2018), 4; 360-372 doi:10.1002/cmdc.201700748