Franca Vulinovic, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Name: Franca Vulinovic, nee Franke

Position/Title: Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Address: Institute of Neurogenetics, University of Lübeck

Maria-Goeppert-Str. 1, 23562 Lübeck, Germany

Phone: +49-451-31018203; Fax: +49-451-31018204

Email: franca.vulinovic@neuro.uni-luebeck.de

2006 –2009: Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Studies of Biology)

2008 – 2009: Bachelor thesis (Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Laboratory of Prof. R. Weiler, Neurobiology; “Verteilung von Pannexinen und P2X7-Rezeptoren in der äußeren plexiformen Schicht der Mausretina”

2009 –2011: Hannover Medical School (Studies of Biomedicine) including scientific trainings:

  • Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, Laboratory of Prof. R. Hass, Biochemistry and Tumorbiology

2011: Master thesis (Department of Neurology, Laboratory of Prof. M. Stangel, Neuroimmunology; “Einfluss von epo- und CNTF-mimetischen Peptiden auf die Proliferation und Differenzierung von Oligodendrozyten“

2011 – 2016: Doctoral thesis, Laboratory of Prof. C. Klein, Institute of Neurogenetics; “Molecular characterization of DYT-TOR1A dystonia and TUBB4A-linked diseases”

2016 – present: Medical school (Lübeck)

2016 – present: Postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Neurogenetics

2015:  Junior Research Award of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurogenetik

2012: Travel grant of the Renate-Maaß foundation

2013: Travel grant of the GlaxoSmithKline foundation

  1. Rakovic A, Voß D, Vulinovic F, Meier B, Hellberg AK, Nau C, Klein C, Leipold E. Electrophysiological Properties of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Midbrain Dopaminergic Neurons Correlate With Expression of Tyrosine Hydroxylase. Front Cell Neurosci 2022:817198.
  2. Krajka V, Vulinovic F, Genova M, Tanzer K, Jijumon AS, Bodakuntla S, Tennstedt S, Mueller-Fielitz H, Meier B, Janke C, Klein C, Rakovic A. H-ABC- and dystonia-causing TUBB4A mutations show distinct pathogenic effects. Sci Adv 2022;10:eabj9229.
  3. Kasten M, Hartmann C, Hampf J, Schaake S, Westenberger A, Vollstedt EJ, Balck A, Domingo A, Vulinovic F, Dulovic M, Zorn I, Madoev H, Zehnle H, Lembeck CM, Schawe L, Reginold J, Huang J, König IR, Bertram L, Marras C, Lohmann K, Lill CM, Klein C. Genotype-Phenotype Relations for the Parkinson's Disease Genes Parkin, PINK1, DJ1: MDSGene Systematic Review. Mov Disord 2021;5:730-741.
  4. Kasten M, Hartmann C, Hampf J, Schaake S, Westenberger A, Vollstedt EJ, Balck A, Domingo A, Vulinovic F, Dulovic M, Zorn I, Madoev H, Zehnle H, Lembeck CM, Schawe L, Reginold J, Huang J, König IR, Bertram L, Marras C, Lohmann K, Lill CM, Klein C. Genotype-Phenotype Relations for the Parkinson's Disease Genes Parkin, PINK1, DJ1: MDSGene Systematic Review. Mov Disord 2021;5:730-741.
  5. Alvarez-Fischer D, Vernik T, Vulinovic F, Herrmann A, Westenberger A, Klein C. Transgenerational transduction of MPTP-induced alterations in a Parkinson's disease mouse model. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders 2020:88-90.
  6. Stengel F, Vulinovic F, Meier B, Grütz K, Klein C, Capetian P. Impaired differentiation of human induced neural stem cells by TOR1A overexpression. Mol Biol Rep 2020;5:3993-4001.
  7. Vulinovic F, Krajka V, Hausrat TJ, Seibler P, Alvarez-Fischer D, Madoev H, Park JS, Kumar KR, Sue CM, Lohmann K, Kneussel M, Klein C, Rakovic A. Motor protein binding and mitochondrial transport are altered by pathogenic TUBB4A variants. Hum Mutat 2019;12:2444.
  8. Vulinovic F, Schaake S, Domingo A, Kumar KR, Defazio G, Mir P, Simonyan K, Ozelius LJ, Brüggemann N, Chung SJ, Rakovic A, Lohmann K, Klein C. Screening study of TUBB4A in isolated dystonia. Parkinsonism Relat Disord 2017:118-120.
  9. Richter A, Hollstein R, Hebert E, Vulinovic F, Eckhold J, Osmanovic A, Depping R, Kaiser FJ, Lohmann K. In-depth Characterization of the Homodimerization Domain of the Transcription Factor THAP1 and Dystonia-Causing Mutations Therein. J Mol Neurosci 2017;1:11-16.
  10. Kumar KR, Vulinovic F, Lohmann K, Park JS, Schaake S, Sue CM, Klein C. Mutations in TUBB4A and spastic paraplegia. Mov Disord 2015;13:1857-1858.
  11. Vulinovic F, Lohmann K, Rakovic A, Capetian P, Alvarez-Fischer D, Schmidt A, Weißbach A, Erogullari A, Kaiser FJ, Wiegers K, Ferbert A, Rolfs A, Klein C, Seibler P. Unraveling cellular phenotypes of novel TorsinA/TOR1A mutations. Hum Mutat 2014;9:1114-1122.
  12. Arif B, Kumar KR, Seibler P, Vulinovic F, Fatima A, Winkler S, Nürnberg G, Thiele H, Nürnberg P, Jamil AZ, Brüggemann A, Abbas G, Klein C, Naz S, Lohmann K. A novel OPA3 mutation revealed by exome sequencing: an example of reverse phenotyping. JAMA Neurol 2013;6:783-787.