Jovana Aranđelović has experience with various α5 and α6 GABAA receptor modulators in mice and rats along with expertise in behavioral research and statistical analysis of behavioral data. Her doctorate dealt with positive (PAM) and negative allosteric modulation (NAM) of α5 GABAA receptors on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) model. However, she gave immense contribution to the realization of Horizon IMI project “NeuroDeRisk“. She participated in the development of a behavioral battery for preclinical screening for drug side effects on mood, cognition, impulsivity and anxiety within the Horizon IMI project “NeuroDeRisk“ where 10 compounds were tested on rats. She analyzed all of these behavioral data and validated the behavioral paradigm for impulsivity testing in Bussey-Saksida touchscreen chambers.
She conducted behavioral tests for sensory-motor function (assesment of corneal, pina, clasping, righting reflexes, rotarod, beam walking test), impulsivity (variable-delay-to-signal protocol in automated touchscreen chambers), anxiety (elevated plus maze), locomotor activiy (open field), agression (resident-intruder test), sociability (social interaction test, social recognition test, three chamber test), memory (novel object recognition test, morris water maze), mood (sucrose preference test), but also qPCR and western blots.
While she was working on extensive behavioral batteries for Horizon project, she also enrolled the one-year study program in bioinformatics, where she not only learned advanced linear algebra but also basics of Python and R. Further, she went on the research internship at Sanofi within “NeuroDeRisk“ project to work on bulk RNA sequencing analysis of the data generated for revealing neurotoxicity after drug exposure (manuscripts in preparation). Furthermore, she realized three-week project related to bulk RNAseq analysis in Dr Herault’s lab at IGBMC in France.
Beside aforementioned, she contributed to many side projects related to behavioral and pharmacokinetic characterization of GABAA receptor ligands in healthy as well as in model animals. She worked on exploring GABAergic function in animal model of autism. Further, she contributed to the testing of procognitive effects of PAM in healthy rats. She collaborated on two-hit rat model of PTSD (under revision) and tested effects of GABAA receptor ligands in this model. She is currently developing the two-hit rat model of chronic mild unpredictable stress and testing GABAA receptor modulators in this model within “NanoCellEmoCog” project.
As Jovana Aranđelović had limited opportunities to conduct molecular techniques in home laboratory, but she gained basic knowledge in work with cell cultures and neuroimaging when selected for advanced Cajal training program “Aging cognition (2021)“, where she attended project “Is lysosome dysfunction a mechanism of synapse ageing?“. There she performed immunostainings, used confocal and wide-field fluorescent microscopy for detecting synapses and live cell imaging, respectively, and used ImageJ and custom-made software for quantification of synapses and tracking of vesicles. She advanced these techniques in competitive FENS/IBRO exchange fellowship at Nova Medical School in Portugal (2023).