Adna Ašić, International Burch University in Sarajevo

Hello everyone!

My name is Adna Ašić and I am working as an Associate Professor of Genetics and Population Genetics at the International Burch University in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I applied for a combined teaching/training mobility for academic staff in order to get a week-long stay at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Valladolid. Upon receiving information that I was selected for this mobility, I passed through the most well-organized and timely preparation process ever – all steps at UVa are explained in a lot of detail and prepared on time. My travel and stay in Valladolid were completely stress-free.

During my stay, I was honored to give a lecture to the undergraduate students at the Department of Biomedicine and Advanced Therapies. Since my lecture was a part of the workshop aimed at improving the students’ scientific curiosity and research perspectives, I was talking about my research in fields of human and population genetics. More precisely, I discussed how we are using Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA studies to explain the origins of the present-day population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also how to use this data to deduce the paternal and maternal origins and relations of the South Slavs which, to this day, remain partly unresolved. Also, I talked about my recent research interest in COVID-19. As everywhere else in the world, the pandemics influenced my country heavily and we wanted to give our contribution to the research related to it. We analyzed parts of genomes of the COVID-19 patients from Bosnia and Herzegovina and identified interesting genetic variants that might be determining the severity of COVID-19 in our cohort, but also their susceptibility for getting infected at the first place. Furthermore, we went through some classical genetic topics, since I wanted my audience to get an idea on how the lectures are organized at the International Burch University. Hopefully, I inspired some of them to come visit us through the student mobility programs and maybe even start thinking about moving their careers towards the studies of the human genome variation or population history and structure.

As a matter of fact, students from the International Burch University are already visiting the University of Valladolid for their mobilities and this call is always one of the most competitive ones at our University. I used my time in Valladolid to see the four of them currently studying in Valladolid and have a quick coffee.

Other than the lecture, meetings, and study visits I had while in Valladolid, I spent a good portion of time sightseeing. The spirit of Miguel de Cervantes all over Valladolid is my favorite thing. Reading his Don Quixote when I was 15 years old left a very strong impression on me and shaped a good part of my personality. I was more than happy to visit his house and see the desk which he probably used for writing a prologue to the first part of this book. I have to mention the architecture and food in Valladolid, which inspired me as well. Still, my favorite part of Valladolid were the people; so warm, welcoming and always willing to help. Two nights in Madrid necessary to catch my flights were an added bonus which I enjoyed a lot. This was my first time in Spain and I will make sure to come back again!