Alemka Markotić
Assistant Editor
Full Professor at the University of Rijeka
Alemka Markotić is a director of the University Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Zagreb. She is a head of the Dept. for Research (including Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory) and a head of the Clinical Dept. for Urinary Tract Infections. She is also a full professor at the Medical School, Univ. of Rijeka and Catholic Univ. Zagreb and associate member of the Croatian Academy. She received her M.D. at the Medical School Univ. of Sarajevo (1989), an MSc. in Medical Microbiology and Parasitology (1996), and a Ph.D. in Infectious Diseases (1999) from the Univ. of Zagreb Medical School. Her specializations are in Clinical Immunology (1997) and Infectious Diseases (2007). Dr. Markotić began her biomedical research career at the Univ. of Sarajevo Medical School, studying ribavirin treatment of hantaviruses with collaboration from the US Army Medical Research Inst. for Infectious Diseases. She received a NAS, National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at USAMRIID to conduct research on the immunopathogenesis of hantaviruses. She received the Joel Dalrymple Memorial Award (American Society of Virology) and the USAMRIID Coin. Her research on zoonoses and hantaviruses has earned her many awards (Croatian Academy Annual Award for Medicine, Annual State Award for Medicine, European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Award for Excellence). Her recent research is focused on emerging and re-emerging zoonotic infectious diseases, urinary tract and STD infections. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and has been principal investigator on research projects studying immune responses, clinical characteristics and molecular epidemiology of zoonotic diseases. At the UHID, she established the Center for Emerging and Re-emerging Infection Diseases and managed the first Croatian BSL-3 laboratory. She is trained and certified for work in BSL-3 facilities and received theoretical training in BSL-4 level work at USAMRIID. At the request of the EC and Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Markotić designed and presented a Biosafety/Biosecurity Training Wrk in Beijing in 2009. Dr. Markotić also worked for several years at the Institute of Immunology, where at the Viral Vaccines and Interferon Quality Control Unit was responsible for the quality and safety of biologicals according to GLP, GMP, WHO, EC and FDA regulations. She is a member of the Council of the Intl. Society for Hantaviruses, the Board for Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the Board for Genomics at the Croatian Academy. In the 1990s, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she organized and provided medical care. From 2016-2020 she was a member of the Homeland Security Council. She served on the Croatian National Council for Science, Committee of the Croatian Science Foundation and as a Vice-President of the Scientific Council in the Scope of Biomedicine and Health, on NIAID Special Emphasis Peer Review panels and as an expert evaluator for FP6 and Horizon 2020 projects. In 2013 she was appointed as the member of the NRC Committee (NAS) on Science Needs for Microbial Forensics: Developing an Initial International Roadmap. In 2018 she was member of two NRC Committees – the Committee on Regional Workshops on Science and Technology Issues for the Biological Weapons Convention and the Committee for Governance of Dual Use Research in the Life Sciences: Advancing Global Consensus on Research Oversight. Prof. Markotić established Croatian Society of Biosafety and Biosecurity. Currently she is a member of the National Crisis Headquarters for COVID-19 in Croatia.