General Director of the Ruđer Bošković Institute Dr. Danica Ramljak accompanied by the Advisor for the International Cooperation, Dr. Marija-Mary Sopta, left for a working visit to Canada today. The purpose of this working visit is to establish contacts with top scientific institutions in Canada which are of the strategic interest for the RBI in developing a mutual cooperation.

At a gala event held in the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall the 60th anniversary of RBI was celebrated today.

A gala event marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Ruder Bošković Institute, Croatia's largest natural science research institute and one of the leading multidisciplinary research institutes in Southeast Europe, will be held at 11 am on Wednesday, June 9, 2010 in the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Croatia Dr. Ivo Josipovic and Mrs Jadranka Kosor, Premier of the government of the Republic of Croatia.

RBI Research associate Dr. Aleksandar Višnjevac has published an article entitled First Zn(II) bowl-complexes modeling the active site of mono-nuclear metallo-enzymes in the prestigious journal Organic Letters. This work details the development of a novel generation of biomimetic models of mono-nuclear metallo-enzyme active sites based on specially designed Resorcinarene-based ligands.

RBI scientist Dr. Silva Katušić Hećimović and colleagues Martina Malnar and Marko Košićek in the Laboratory for molecular neuropharmacology, Department of Molecular Medicine have published a paper entitled Niemann Pick type C cells show cholesterol dependent decrease of APP expression at the cell surface and its increased processing through the beta-secretase pathway in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Basis of Disease. This work is the result of a collaboration between Dr. Katušić Hećimović and scientists from the USA (NIH-FIRCA project) and Germany (DAAD-MZOŠ bilateral project).

The disappearance of the initial neutrino flavor has already been observed by several experiments in the last 15 years, but the “direct appearance” is still the outstanding missing tile of the puzzle, and the OPERA experiment is unique worldwide for this purpose. Neutrino oscillation is today the only indication of new, fascinating physics beyond the so-called Standard Model of particles and interactions, opening the possibility of unexpected implications in cosmology, astrophysics and particle physics.

Today Dr. Danica Ramljak, Director General of the RBI and Dr. Vedran Mornar dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) signed an agreement of cooperation. The agreement aims to develop multidisciplinary cooperation between RBI and FER in the context of the European Research Area (ERA) by implementing cutting edge eScience technology.

ASPERA Croatian National Day began today at the National Science Foundation in Opatija. ASPERA (Astro Particle ERAnet) is a European network of national institutions which finance projects in astrophysics. 

As part of the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of RBI, the Center for Informatics and Computer Science and the Department of Electronics at RBI will hold a meeting on May 31, 2010 in the auditorium of Wing III commemorating 60 Years of Electronics and Computer Science Research at RBI. Among the numerous renowned scientists from Croatia and abroad attending the event, Professor Veljko Radeka, recipient of the Harold Wheeler Award and director of the Instrumentation Division at the Brookhaven National Lab (USA) will also be a participant.

At the grand opening of the 33rd International Conference on Informatics and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Microelectronics - MIPRO 2010 the RBI was awarded the MIPRO Charter for exceptional service in the development of ICT, electronics and microelectronics. The award was given to Dr. Danica Ramljak, Director General of the RBI at a ceremony held in the Congress hall of the Hotel Adriatic in Opatija.