Milica Živković, PhD, graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Belgrade in 2004 and has been working at IMGGE ever since. In 2006, she completed her Master's thesis in Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, and in 2012 she finished her PhD thesis at IMGGE, Faculty of Biology, UB. Her PhD thesis was focused on the characterization of surface molecules from different natural lactobacilli isolates involved in potential probiotic activity and was awarded by the “Goran Ljubijankić" Foundation. She has held the position of Senior Research Associate since 2020. Her extensive experience in classical and molecular microbiological methods for characterisation and identification of bacteria and their features has been acknowledged in more than 30 scientific articles. She has over 1000 citations and an h-index of 19. She has been the project leader of two international R&D collaborations and mentor for one PhD thesis. Dr Živković has had two long-term stays at IPLA, Asturias, Spain for scientific collaborations and she has initiated more domestic collaborations. Her current work is mainly focused on in vitro and in vivo testing of the probiotic potential of natural isolated lactic acid bacteria, and on defining the molecular mechanisms of probiotic action in various health disorders. Besides fundamental science, she was twice a member of a team competing for the best technological innovation. in 2018, the team has entered the semi-finals and in 2019 it was a finalist in the first startup competition of its kind in Serbia. She is one of the innovators working on the development of the first fermented probiotic product for the prevention and treatment of diabetes in pets. Dr Živković is a CEO of a spin-out company, Diasolution, which offers a novel probiotic for treating diabetes and prediabetes, the efficacy of which was demonstrated in a clinical trial at the University Clinical Centre in Belgrade, Serbia, in 2023.