22
May
IN MEMORIAM: PROFESSOR, MENTOR, COLLEAGUE AND FRIEND PROF DR JURE PIŠKUR
Prof Dr Jurij Piškur lived for the science and made a great contribution to the field of genetics and molecular biology of yeasts. He also lived for the people in the science. He shifted the boundaries in thinking and his energy and commitment were inspiration to many people. He was an exquisite educator and mentor - both in science and in life.
Numerous students and colleagues, both abroad and in Slovenia, will develop his ideas in the future.
Prof Dr Jurij Piškur spent a half of his life abroad and yet had professional and personal contacts with his home country. He completed grammar school in his place of birth, Celje, and continued his studies at the University of Ljubljana. In 1984, he received the Prešeren Award in the field of genetics of bacteria. Having graduated from the field of DNA biophysics at the Department of Biology of the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, he continued his studies in Australia. In 1989, he defended his PhD thesis at the Australian National University of Canberra from the field of molecular biology and genetics of yeasts.
Then he returned to Europe and got a job at the Department of Yeast Genetic, Carlsberg laboratory (Copenhagen, Denmark). His scientific path continued at the Department of Genetics at the University of Copenhagen. He was an associate professor for molecular genetics and built up his first research team. Since 2004, he has been a full-time professor for molecular genetics at the Department of Biology of the University of Lund (LU) in Sweden. He made regular visits to Slovenia in the past twenty years and had numerous lectures in research organisations and conferences. He had intense co-operation with the Marine Biology Station of the National Institute of Biology and with the University of Nova Gorica where he has been partly employed as a full-time professor since 2010.
His research work was described in more than 120 scientific papers. Many of them have been published in top-ranked journals. He made several discoveries from the field of molecular biology and genetics that were patented; he had co-authored three books and was a co-founder of several spin-off biotechnology enterprises. A special tribute to his research achievements was his election to the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund (Kgl. Fysiografiska Sällskapet i Lund) which is one of Swedish royal academies. Since 2010, he has been active in the Committee for Science at the Council of the Government of Slovenia for Slovenians abroad. He received the Miroslav Zei prize of the National Institute of Biology in 2011 and the state award Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia within the scope of the Zois awards in 2012.
The main research fields of Prof Dr Piškur cover the metabolism of nucleic acid precursors, genetic treatment, comparative genomics and molecular evolution of yeasts. One of his major discoveries was a novel enzyme, deoxyribonucleoside kinase (EC 2.7.1.145), which represents a model to understand biochemistry, activation of anti-cancer drugs. Apart from that, he made a significant contribution to the discovery of suicide genes for a genetic therapy of cancer. He actively participated in the establishment, development and popularisation of novel yeast model organisms Saccharomyces kluyveri, S. castellii and Dekkera/Brettanomyces bruxellensis and in the development of hypotheses on uneven evolution of duplicated genes.
Jure, you were a professor and mentor, yet an extraordinary friend. We will always remember you for your work, commitment and energy.
Photo: mb.cision.com