Born on June 27, 1937 in Osijek, he graduated from the University of Ljubljana, Department
of Chemical Technology in 1961 and defended his Ph.D. in Chemistry at
the same department in 1965. He was a postdoctoral
fellow at the University of Arizona (Tuscon, AR), Department of
Chemistry,
from 1969 to 1970. Dr. Turk became Head of Department of Biochemistry
(now
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
), J. Stefan Institute, in 1971. He was appointed Professor of
biochemistry
and enzymology in 1985. Since July 1996 he is director of the
Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Professor Turk actively participates at many international
conferences from the field of biochemistry and biotechnology and was
often invited as a lecturer to universities and research institutes
across Europe, USA, Japan and South America. He organised several
national and international research conferences.
His scope of interests comprises proteins, structural biology, and
genomics. His special topic is structure and function of lysosomal
proteases and their inhibitors (stefins /named by the institute he
heads/, cystatins and kininogens). With his coworkers, he published 280
research articles in leading biochemical journals, 110 chapters in
books or proceedings (including reviews) and edited 4 books. He is
currently a member of the editorial boards of IUBMB Life and
Current Protein Peptide Science and is referee for Biol. Chemistry,
Eur. J. Biochem., FEBS Lett.,
Biochemistry, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, EMBO J., Structure, J.
Biol. Chem., PNAS, Nature, etc.
Major duties:
- 1981 - 1984: President of ECOP (European Committee on
Proteolysis)
- 1984 - 1987: President of ICOP (International Committee on
Proteolysis)
- 1987 - 1991: President of the Yugoslav Federation of Biochemical
Societies
- 1987 - 1989: President of the FEBS (Federation of European
Biochemical Societies) Executive Committee
- 1990 - 1998 Secretary General of FEBS (Federation of
European Biochemical Societies)
- since 1997 Chairman of the IUBMB (International
Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) Committee on
Symposia and Interest Groups and member of the IUBMB Executive Committee
Honours and Prizes:
- 1969 and 1978: Boris Kidric Foundation Prize
- 1984: Boris Kidric Foundation Prize for R&D achievements
- 1985: Frey and Werle Prize of the Ludwig-Maximilians University
(Munich, Germany) for advances in the study of kallikrein-kinin system
- 1991: Heyrowsky Silver Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy of
Sciences and Arts for scientific achievements in chemistry
- since 1991: member of the European Academy
- 1993: Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia
- since 1998: Member of International Engineering Academy (Moscow,
Russia)
- 1998: "Zois Award" for achievements in science (Ljubljana,
Slovenia)
- 1998/99: FEBS "Ferdinand Springer Lecturer"
- since 1999: EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation) Member
- 1999: FEBS Diplome d'Honneur
- 2000: Honorary member of the Croatian Biochemical Society
- 2002: Emeritus Professor at Tokushima Bunri University
(Tokushima, Japan)
- 2002: The Silver Order of Freedom of the Republic of Slovenia
for outstanding contributions in the field of science and merits
for the affirmation of the Republic of Slovenia abroad
- 2003: Honorary lifetime membership in “The International
Proteolysis Society” (IPS)
- 2005: Member of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana
- 2005: Member of The World Academy of Art and Science, USA
Memberships:
EMBO, Slovenian Biochemical Society, The Biochemical Society (UK),
Protein Society, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, International Proteolysis Society, etc.
E-mail: Vito.Turk@IJS.SI
Send suggestions for improvement to Marko.Dolinar@IJS.SI.
Last updated October 26, 2005.