Klementina Fon Tacer

Klementina Fon Tacer is an assistant professor of cancer biology and reproductive biology at the Texas Tech University School of Veterinary Medicine. Her work focuses on comparative cancer biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and germ cell differentiation. Dr. Fon Tacer earned her D.V.M. from the Veterinary Faculty and her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Medicine, both at the University of Ljubljana. She completed her postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX, and St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. She then joined the newly established School of Veterinary Medicine at Texas Tech. Before returning to the U.S.A., Dr. Fon Tacer spent two years at the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, where she taught animal nutrition and studied metabolism and cancer. She is a recent CPRIT Scholar Award winner from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

Research projects: The overarching aim of Prof. Fon Tacer’s research is to uncover novel mechanisms that have evolved to protect mammalian germ cells against stress, discover how and why they were co-opted in cancer, and ultimately apply the insights learned for the advancement of cancer treatment, fertility preservation, and conservation of endangered species. To sddress these questions her group employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining techniques from classical molecular biology and biochemistry to single-cell technology, genome editing, omics analysis, mouse physiology and biostatistics, With an interdiscipliniray program and comparative approach. Dr. Fon Tacer plans to interconnect veterinry and human medicine to ultimately benefit both, animal and human wellbeing and health. Prospective students can work in the area of human or animal cancer biology, germ cell biology, and reproduction.