Dr Jovana Kaljevic

Jovana is a molecular microbiologist studying how bacteria control their growth, division, and survival. During her PhD on Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, she investigated how this predatory bacterium replicates and segregates its chromosome. It became clear from her work that chromosome segregation in Bdellovibrio depends on the ParB protein, primarily a specific domain within ParB, which is essential for cells survival.

This discovery sparked a broader question: where else in nature does this domain appear, beyond classical segregation systems?

Pursuing this led Jovana to her postdoctoral work at the John Innes Centre, where she studies the evolution and diversification of the ParB-CTPase domains across bacteria, archaea, and phages.

One of the most striking examples she has uncovered is a bacterial toxin that contains the same domain. In this new context, a fold that typically supports chromosome segregation becomes a potent killing mechanism. Using biochemistry, structural analysis, evolutionary genomics, and imaging, she aims to understand this novel toxic mechanism.