Marija Genčić (nee Denić) was born on September 1, 1985, in Niš (Serbia). After finishing BCs in Chemistry (2009) at the Faculty of Science and Mathematics, University of Niš, she received her Ph.D. (2015) at the same Faculty working under the supervision of Professor Dr. Niko Radulović in the field of chemistry of natural products. She worked as a researcher and teaching assistant at the mentioned Faculty, and currently, she holds the position of Assistant Professor. During her studies, Marija received Silver Sign of the University of Niš, as the best-graduated student of the University for the 2008/09 school year in the field of mathematics and natural sciences, Annual Award of the Serbian Chemical Society for outstanding success during the studies and “Nenad M. Kostić Foundation” Award for the best university degree or master's thesis in chemistry at the universities in Serbia for the 2009/10 school year. A decade later dr. Genčić was an MS thesis supervisor to Jelena Aksić that became a laureate of the same award from “Nenad M. Kostić Foundation”.

Previous work of dr. Genčić was primarily in the field of phytochemistry with the main focus on studies of the chemical composition (extracts and essential oils) of plants with a documented use in traditional medicine in order to isolate or synthesize new biologically active natural products. In the last few years, her research interest has included medicinal organometallic chemistry (i.e. the design and synthesis of potentially bioactive ferrocene-containing derivatives), as well. She is very skilled in general synthetic, separation, isolation, and purification techniques, as well as in some methods for the evaluation of anti-inflammatory activity.

Dr. Genčić is an author or co-author in 24 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, as well as in more than 30 presentations at international and national conferences and symposia. Her research work has received 204 citations (without self-citation) and her h index is currently 9 (according to SCOPUS database accessed on 17/12/2020). 

Thus far dr. Genčić has been engaged in the following relevant research projects:

• Secondary Metabolites: Chemical Composition, Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activity (02/2010 – 12/2010) funded by The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (MESTD) of the Republic of Serbia;
• Combinatorial Libraries of Heterogeneous Catalysts, Natural Products, Modified Natural Products and Analogues: The Approach to New Biologically Active Agents (01/2011 – 12/2019) funded by the MESTD;
• Synthesis of New 2-Azetidinone-Ferrocene Hybrid-Based β-Lactamase Inhibitors (08/2016 – 01/2017), a postdoctoral research project at a SynBioC Research Group (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Belgium) funded by the MESTD;
• Chloroquine‒(Ferrocenyl-β-Lactam) Hybrids With a Dual Antimalarial/Antibacterial Mode of Action (12/2017 – ) funded by 2017 L’Oréal-UNESCO National Fellowship “For Women in Science”.