"I did not get here on my own. I am sincerely grateful to my current and former PhD students, postdocs and all the members of my group, and to the Ruđer Bošković Institute, where it is a genuine pleasure to work, to push the boundaries of science and to discover something new. My thanks also go to all the inspiring collaborators in Croatia and abroad, without whom there would not have been so many exciting projects, and to the professors, mentors and scientific role models who shaped the way I think. And, of course, above all, my thanks go to my wonderful family.
I congratulate all the newly elected academicians, I thank the Department of Natural Sciences for this great honour, and I look forward to working together within the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts," said Dr Iva Tolić.
Recognition for science that changes our understanding of life
On Thursday, 21 May, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts held the electoral assembly at which 12 new full members, 7 corresponding members and 13 associate members of HAZU were elected. Prof. Dr Iva Tolić is among the newly elected full members.
The election of Iva Tolić to the country's highest scientific and artistic institution is a special recognition of her many years of research in the biophysics of cell division, but also a powerful message to young scientists. Her career shows that excellence is not built overnight, but through dedication, curiosity, perseverance, teamwork and the belief that, even from Croatia, one can compete at the very top of world science.
From Zagreb to Harvard, Max Planck and back to "Ruđer"
Dr Iva Tolić was born in Zagreb on 24 June 1974. She graduated in molecular biology from the Faculty of Science at the University of Zagreb in 1996. She began her scientific career at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, where, from 1996 to 1999, during her postgraduate studies in molecular biology, she worked as a junior researcher in the group of academician Nenad Trinajstić.
She completed her doctoral research at Harvard University, defended her thesis at the University of Zagreb, and carried out postdoctoral work in Copenhagen and Florence. From 2004 to 2014, she led a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. In 2015, she returned to her native Zagreb.
Discoveries that changed cell biology
Her field of research is the biophysics of cell division. In her interdisciplinary work, she combines molecular cell biology with the most advanced microscopy methods, optogenetics, and approaches drawn from mathematics, physics and computer science.
She built her reputation in the international scientific community through a series of fundamental discoveries that have made it possible to understand the biophysical principles of cell division. Her research has revealed the mechanism by which the mitotic spindle captures chromosomes, a new structure in the spindle that she named the bridging fibre, the chirality of the spindle, and the principle that guides chromosomes toward the centre of the spindle, along with its impact on errors in chromosome segregation in cancer cells.
A particularly notable contribution is the discovery of the so-called "danger zone" within the cell, a region where chromosomes are more likely to be mis-segregated, opening up a new framework for understanding chromosomal instability in cancer.
She is the author of more than 110 scientific papers published in journals including the most prestigious ones: Nature, Science and Cell. She has been elected a member of the Academia Europaea and of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO), as well as an associate member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She is a recipient of the Ignaz Lieben Award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Order of the Croatian Daystar with the effigy of Ruđer Bošković, the National Science Award, the medal and award of the European Biophysical Societies' Association for outstanding scientific contributions to biophysics, the European Life Science Award in the Researcher of the Year category, the Influential Croatian Woman Award, the award of the Croatian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for an outstanding contribution to the development of the molecular life sciences, and many other honours.
Two ERC projects, awards regarded as the Oscars of science
She holds two prestigious projects funded by the European Research Council. In 2015, she was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant, "A new class of microtubules in the spindle exerting forces on kinetochores (NewSpindleForce)," worth more than two million euros, and in 2020 an ERC Synergy Grant, "Molecular origins of aneuploidies in healthy and diseased human tissues (Aneuploidy)," worth ten million euros for four research groups.
A scientist who inspires new generations of researchers
Alongside her cutting-edge research, Dr Tolić is deeply committed to education, mentorship and the development of young scientists. She is a titular full professor at the Department of Biology of the Faculty of Science at the University of Zagreb. She has given more than 200 invited lectures at international conferences and at leading scientific institutions around the world. She has supervised 25 doctoral students.
It is precisely this combination of scientific excellence, international recognition, a return to Croatia, the building of a strong research group at the RBI, and openness toward young people that makes her election to HAZU especially significant. The career of Prof. Dr. Iva Tolić shows that scientific success rests on talent, but even more on dedicated work, persistence, collaboration, the courage to ask big questions, and the energy with which she gathers and empowers a team around her.
The election of Dr Iva Tolić as a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is a great honour for her personally, for her team and for the Ruđer Bošković Institute, but also confirmation that Croatia has scientists who, through their work, push the boundaries of knowledge and inspire new generations of researchers.
For a generation of young scientists still deciding whether to stay, leave, or one day return, that may be the most important message of all. Doing excellent science in Croatia is not easy. But Iva Tolić's example shows that it is possible, with knowledge, hard work, international openness, a dedicated team, and enough energy to keep asking the next question even after the toughest experiments. And all of it with a broad smile.
