Tamara Babić, Research Assistant in IMGGE, has defended her PhD thesis entitled "Alternative transcription initiation of the SMAD4 gene in colorectal cancer" at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. The thesis was done in the Gene Regulation in Cancer Group under supervision of Dr. Aleksandra Nikolić.

In this research, Tamara Babić studied the transcriptional regulation of the SMAD4 gene and the role of different transcripts of this gene in colorectal cancer, as well as their potential for diagnosing this disease.

The following two publications resulted from this doctoral dissertation:

• Babic T, Dragicevic S, Miladinov M, Krivokapic Z, Nikolic A. SMAD4-201 transcript as a putative biomarker in colorectal cancer. BMC Cancer. 2022;22(1):72.
• Babic T, Ugrin M, Jeremic S, Kojic M, Dinic J, Banovic Djeri B, Zoidakis J, Nikolic A. Dysregulation of transcripts SMAD4-209 and SMAD4-213 and their respective promoters in colon cancer cell lines. J Cancer. 2024;15(15):5118-5131.