Igor Stagljar

Igor Stagljar
Born1966 (age 59–60)
Zagreb
EducationFaculty of Science, University of Zagreb
PartnerDarija Jašić
Scientific career
FieldsMolecular biology
WorkplacesUniversity of Toronto

Igor Stagljar is a Canadian molecular biologist who was born in Croatia. He is a professor of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at Donnelly Centre at the Medical School of the University of Toronto, and is also a Co-Director and Laboratory Head at the Mediterranean Institute of Life Sciences in Split (Croatia). He is an expert in the field of proteomics, cancer cell signalling and COVID-19 serological testing.[citation needed]

Education

He received a BSc. (1990) from the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and a Ph.D. (1995) in molecular biology from ETH Zurich (Switzerland).

Career

In 2018, Stagljar announced that his lab had discovered a potential treatment for a subform of non-small cell lung cancer called lung adenocarcinoma, which is caused by a triple mutation in the EGFR gene. They found that two previously described kinase inhibitors, midostaurin and gilteritinib, inhibit the EGFR triple mutant, which was resistant to all known tyrosine kinase inhibitors, including osimertinib, the latest generation of TKIs, at that time. This discovery was published two years later in Nature Chemical Biology.

Stagljar has performed biomedical research to understand how proteins interact with each other to produce either healthy or diseased cell states. Over the years, his lab has studied interaction proteomics methods such as the split-ubiquitin Membrane Yeast Two-Hybrid (MYTH) Mammalian Membrane Two-Hybrid (MaMTH), Mammalian Membrane Two-Hybrid Drug Screening (MaMTH-DS), and Split Intein Mediated Protein Ligation (SIMPL) technologies.

During COVID-19 pandemic Stagljar and colleagues developed pinprick COVID-19 serological test named SATiN (Serological Assay based on split TrIpart Nanoluciferase) that accurately measures in under one hour concentration of coronavirus antibodies in blood of people either infected with SARS-CoV-2 or synthesized in their bodies post vaccination. SATiN was the first COVID-19 serology test that uses highly sensitive protein complementation chemistry which takes advantage of a modified form of luciferase – an enzyme that gives fireflies their light-emitting power through a biochemical reaction. In collaboration with Shawn Owen’s lab at the University of Utah, Stagljar and colleagues further modified SATiN and developed Neu-SATiN method that can be used to detect the presence and potency of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Stagljar is a co-founder of Dualsystems Biotech Inc (Schlieren, Switzerland;)[non-primary source needed] and Perturba Therapeutics (Toronto, Canada).)

Awards

In 2022, Stagljar has been elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the highest honor that Canadian individuals can achieve in the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences and Biomedicine

References

  1. 1 2 Suhasini G (5 September 2012). "Croatian-born molecular biologist works hard and plays hard in Canada". Canadian Immigrant. Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Igor Stagljar". Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "Cancer Signalling & Therapeutics". MedILS. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  4. 1 2 Snider J, Hanif A, Lee ME, Jin K, Yu AR, Graham C, et al. (September 2013). "Mapping the functional yeast ABC transporter interactome". Nature Chemical Biology. 9 (9): 565–572. doi:10.1038/nchembio.1293. ISSN 1552-4450. PMC 3835492. PMID 23831759.
  5. ↑ "Igor Štagljar: Scientific laborer". Yachts Croatia. 8 August 2018.
  6. ↑ Stagljar I, Korostensky C, Johnsson N, te Heesen S (28 April 1998). "A genetic system based on split-ubiquitin for the analysis of interactions between membrane proteins in vivo". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 95 (9): 5187–5192. Bibcode:1998PNAS...95.5187S. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.9.5187. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 20236. PMID 9560251.
  7. ↑ Petschnigg J, Groisman B, Kotlyar M, Taipale M, Zheng Y, Kurat CF, et al. (May 2014). "The mammalian-membrane two-hybrid assay (MaMTH) for probing membrane-protein interactions in human cells". Nature Methods. 11 (5): 585–592. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2895. hdl:1807/69825. ISSN 1548-7091. PMID 24658140. Archived from the original on 7 March 2025. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  8. ↑ Saraon P, Snider J, Kalaidzidis Y, Wybenga-Groot LE, Weiss K, Rai A, et al. (May 2020). "A drug discovery platform to identify compounds that inhibit EGFR triple mutants". Nature Chemical Biology. 16 (5): 577–586. doi:10.1038/s41589-020-0484-2. ISSN 1552-4450. PMC 8123931. PMID 32094923.
  9. ↑ Yao Z, Aboualizadeh F, Kroll J, Akula I, Snider J, Lyakisheva A, et al. (May 2020). "Split Intein-Mediated Protein Ligation for detecting protein-protein interactions and their inhibition". Nature Communications. 11 (1) 2440. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.2440Y. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16299-1. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7229206. PMID 32415080.
  10. ↑ Paumi CM, Menendez J, Arnoldo A, Engels K, Iyer KR, Thaminy S, et al. (April 2007). "Mapping Protein-Protein Interactions for the Yeast ABC Transporter Ycf1p by Integrated Split-Ubiquitin Membrane Yeast Two-Hybrid Analysis". Molecular Cell. 26 (1): 15–25. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2007.03.011. PMID 17434123.
  11. ↑ Babu M, Vlasblom J, Pu S, Guo X, Graham C, Bean BD, et al. (September 2012). "Interaction landscape of membrane-protein complexes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Nature. 489 (7417): 585–589. Bibcode:2012Natur.489..585B. doi:10.1038/nature11354. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 22940862.
  12. ↑ Xie L, Gao S, Alcaire SM, Aoyagi K, Wang Y, Griffin JK, et al. (March 2013). "NLF-1 Delivers a Sodium Leak Channel to Regulate Neuronal Excitability and Modulate Rhythmic Locomotion". Neuron. 77 (6): 1069–1082. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2013.01.018. PMID 23522043. Archived from the original on 30 May 2025. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
  13. ↑ Costanzo M, VanderSluis B, Koch EN, Baryshnikova A, Pons C, Tan G, et al. (September 2016). "A global genetic interaction network maps a wiring diagram of cellular function". Science. 353 (6306) aaf1420. Bibcode:2016Sci...353f1420C. doi:10.1126/science.aaf1420. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 5661885. PMID 27708008.
  14. ↑ Yao Z, Darowski K, St-Denis N, Wong V, Offensperger F, Villedieu A, et al. (January 2017). "A Global Analysis of the Receptor Tyrosine Kinase-Protein Phosphatase Interactome". Molecular Cell. 65 (2): 347–360. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2016.12.004. PMC 5663465. PMID 28065597.
  15. ↑ Sokolina K, Kittanakom S, Snider J, Kotlyar M, Maurice P, Gandía J, et al. (March 2017). "Systematic protein–protein interaction mapping for clinically relevant human GPCRs". Molecular Systems Biology. 13 (3) MSB167430. doi:10.15252/msb.20167430. ISSN 1744-4292. PMC 5371730. PMID 28298427.
  16. ↑ Kennedy SA, Jarboui MA, Srihari S, Raso C, Bryan K, Dernayka L, et al. (2020). "Extensive rewiring of the EGFR network in colorectal cancer cells expressing transforming levels of KRASG13D". Nature Communications. 11 (1) 499. doi:10.1038/s41467-019-14224-9. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6981206. PMID 31980649.
  17. ↑ Yao Z, Drecun L, Aboualizadeh F, Kim SJ, Li Z, Wood H, et al. (March 2021). "A homogeneous split-luciferase assay for rapid and sensitive detection of anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies". Nature Communications. 12 (1) 1806. Bibcode:2021NatCo..12.1806Y. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22102-6. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7985487. PMID 33753733.
  18. ↑ Semeniuk I (22 March 2021). "'Firefly' test aims to shed light on COVID-19 vaccine endurance". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  19. ↑ Toronto researchers create 'Firefly Method' to measure Covid-19 immunity. CityNews.
  20. ↑ Canadian scientists develop rapid COVID-19 antibody test using firefly enzyme. CBC.
  21. ↑ Rogulj D (29 March 2021). "Croatian Scientist Igor Štagljar and Team Developing $2 Coronavirus Antibody Test". Total Croatia News. Archived from the original on 10 August 2021. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  22. ↑ SATiN (Serological Assay based on split Tripart Nanoluciferase). Igor Stagljar. Archived from the original on 8 April 2021 – via YouTube.
  23. ↑ Kim SJ, Yao Z, Marsh MC, Eckert DM, Kay MS, Lyakisheva A, et al. (1 July 2022). "Homogeneous surrogate virus neutralization assay to rapidly assess neutralization activity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies". Nature Communications. 13 (1) 3716. Bibcode:2022NatCo..13.3716K. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-31300-9. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 9249905. PMID 35778399.
  24. ↑ Leung W (6 July 2022). "What COVID-19 health advice can Canadians follow for the summer surge that's upon us?". The Globe and Mail.
  25. ↑ Jiang K (11 July 2022). "If you got COVID early this year, you can get reinfected now, U of T study finds". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 22 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  26. ↑ Old antibodies no longer effective. CTV News.
  27. ↑ Amin F, Bond M (5 July 2022). "U of T research team develops new test to detect immunity against COVID-19 variants". CityNews. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  28. ↑ "Dualsystems Biotech".
  29. ↑ "Cyclica launches Perturba Therapeutics, a spin out from the University of Toronto, creating the next-generation oncology biotech" (Press release). Cyclica. Archived from the original on 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022 – via Business Wire.
  30. ↑ "Dr. Igor Stagljar Celebrated by a Prestigious Award in Native Croatia". The Donnelly Centre. 30 May 2016.
  31. ↑ "Donnelly Centre Investigator Igor Stagljar Elected to Royal Society of Canada and European Molecular Biology Organization". The Donnelly Centre. 6 September 2022. Archived from the original on 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  32. ↑ Rudež T (11 September 2022). "Naš uvaženi molekularni biolog: 'Postižemo globalno priznate rezultate, a u Hrvatskoj nas napadaju frustrirani pojedinci'". Jutarnji (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 24 September 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  33. ↑ Paštar T (10 September 2022). "Jedan od naših najpriznatijih znanstvenika postao član kanadske akademije znanosti, postaje li i direktor MedILS-a nakon Miroslava Radmana? 'Ovdje imamo slobodu...'". Slobodna Dalmacija (in Croatian). Archived from the original on 22 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  34. ↑ "Igor Štagljar izabran za člana kanadske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti". Croatian Radiotelevision (in Croatian). 7 September 2022. Archived from the original on 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.