Case Western Reserve University: Fulbright Scholars Program: Visiting Scholars at Case Western Reserve University

After spending some of his early years in the United States, Dr. Vladan Bajic has returned to the country as a visiting researcher at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, investigating cell cycle re-entry and chromosomal instability in Alzheimer's disease as a member of the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program.

Beginning in October, he started working with Professor Mark A. Smith from the School of Medicine towards connecting protein instability in the centromere and abortive neuronal cell cycle re-entry in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Instability and alterations in the centromere, a middle region of the chromosome involved in cell division, have been known to lead to several diseases, most notably cancer.

Bajic and Smith suspect similar mechanisms could also be at play in Alzheimer's disease. However, unlike cancer cells, which go on to proliferate, neurons, which are unable to divide, die.

Main Programs:

Visiting Scholar Program. Each year, 800 foreign scholars come to the United States universities to to lecture or conduct postdoctoral research.
Deadline: Various dates in Fall
The Fulbright Senior Specialists. US academics receive short-term grants of two to six weeks to collaborate with overseas colleagues on curriculum and faculty development and other consulting needs.
Deadline: Rolling