Nemanja Đoković, PhD

Nemanja Djokovic was born in 1992 in Čačak, Serbia. He enrolled in the Integrated academic studies of pharmacy at the Faculty of Pharmacy – University of Belgrade in 2011 and graduated in 2016 with an average grade of 9.73 (out of 10). During his studies, he was awarded the Annual Awards for the best students of integrated academic studies in pharmacy. He defended his thesis entitled "Application of 3D-QSAR and virtual screening methods for the design of novel antidepressants targeting serotonin transporter and histamine H3 receptor" at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. Katarina Nikolić, thereby obtaining the title of Master of Pharmacy.

He enrolled in the doctoral academic studies – module Pharmaceutical Chemistry, in the academic year 2016/2017. During the work on his doctoral dissertation, he received the Faculty of Pharmacy's Annual Award for the best scientific research results of PhD students in both 2018 and 2023. Addiotionally, he has received three recognitions from the Faculty of Pharmacy for exceptional contributions to the scientific research. He defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Molecular dynamics simulations, design, synthesis, and in vitro evaluation of inhibitors of epigenetic proteins as potential antineoplastic drugs" at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Belgrade under the mentorship of Prof. Dr. Katarina Nikolić in September 2023, thus obtaining the title of Doctor of Medical Sciences – Pharmacy. During his doctoral studies, he engaged in two research stays at the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.

From June 2022, he works as a teaching assistant in the field of Pharmaceutical-Medicinal Chemistry and Structural Analysis at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade.

By 2024, he had participated as a collaborator in the realization of 8 projects of international cooperation at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Dr. Nemanja Djokovic is a co-author of 17 papers and one chapter in an internationally recognized monograph, including: 5 papers in international journals of exceptional value (M21a), 7 papers in top international journals (M21), 4 papers in prominent international journals (M22), and one paper in a prominent national journal (M52). He is also a co-author of 28 presentations at scientific conferences.

Nemanja Djokovic's scientific interests lie in the development and application of biomolecular simulations, cheminformatics, and bioinformatics methods and protocols in computer-aided drug design, as well as the synthesis, characterization, and biological evaluation of new classes of antineoplastics.

• Djokovic N, Ruzic D, Rahnasto-Rilla M, Srdic-Rajic T, Lahtela-Kakkonen M, Nikolic K. Expanding the Accessible Chemical Space of SIRT2 Inhibitors through Exploration of Binding Pocket Dynamics. J. Chem. Inf. Model. 2022, 62 (10), 2571–2585. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.2c00241.

• Djokovic N*, Djuric A, Ruzic D, Srdic-Rajic T, Nikolic K*. Correlating Basal Gene Expression across Chemical Sensitivity Data to Screen for Novel Synergistic Interactors of HDAC Inhibitors in Pancreatic Carcinoma. Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16 (2), 294. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph16020294.

• Djokovic N*, Rahnasto-Rilla M, Lougiakis N, Lahtela-Kakkonen M, Nikolic K*. SIRT2i_Predictor: A Machine Learning-Based Tool to Facilitate the Discovery of Novel SIRT2 Inhibitors. Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16 (1), 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph16010127.

• Zhang L, Xie X, Djokovic N, Nikolic K, Kosenkov D, Abendroth F, Vázquez O. Reversible Control of RNA Splicing by Photoswitchable Small Molecules. J Am Chem Soc 2023. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c03275

• Albert L, Nagpal J, Steinchen W, Zhang L, Werel L*, Djokovic N*, Ruzic D, Hoffarth M, Xu J, Kaspareit J, Abendroth F, Royant A, Bange G, Nikolic K, Ryu S, Dou Y, Essen L-O, Vázquez O. Bistable Photoswitch Allows in Vivo Control of Hematopoiesis. ACS Cent. Sci. 2022, 8 (1), 57–66. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00434

• Elek M, Djokovic N, Frank A, Oljacic S, Zivkovic A, Nikolic K, Stark H. Synthesis, in Silico, and in Vitro Studies of Novel Dopamine D2 and D3 Receptor Ligands. Arch Pharm (Weinheim) 2021, 354 (6), e2000486. https://doi.org/10.1002/ardp.202000486

• Asanović I, Strandback E*, Kroupova A*, Pasajlic D*, Meinhart A*, Tsung-Pin P*, Djokovic N*, Anrather D, Schuetz T, Suskiewicz M. J, Sillamaa S, Köcher T, Beveridge R, Nikolic K, Schleiffer A, Jinek M, Hartl M, Clausen T, Penninger J, Macheroux P, Weitzer S, Martinez J. The Oxidoreductase PYROXD1 Uses NAD(P)+ as an Antioxidant to Sustain tRNA Ligase Activity in Pre-tRNA Splicing and Unfolded Protein Response. Mol Cell 2021, 81 (12), 2520-2532.e16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2021.04.007.

• Ruzic D, Ellinger B, Djokovic N, Santibanez J. F, Gul S, Beljkas M, Djuric A, Ganesan A, Pavic A, Srdic-Rajic T, Petkovic M, Nikolic K. Discovery of 1-Benzhydryl-Piperazine-Based HDAC Inhibitors with Anti-Breast Cancer Activity: Synthesis, Molecular Modeling, In Vitro and In Vivo Biological Evaluation. Pharmaceutics 2022, 14 (12), 2600. https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics14122600.