Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Bozidar Djelic said  that construction of the first Serbian Stem Cell Centre will start in Kragujevac in March 2012 and should be completed within one year.

After the opening of the international Symposium on stem cells at the Faculty of Medicine in Kragujevac, Djelic said that this project is worth €10 million and will be unique in the region because it will have a bank of stem cells.

He pointed out that it is very important to provide commercial activities in this centre in addition to scientific research because this investment which the state got from the European Investment Bank (EIB) must be very feasible.

The Deputy Prime Minister added that the centre will cover an area of 10,000 square metres and will be built in zone Service 2 at the entrance to Kragujevac.

Prominent geneticist and professor of the University of Kragujevac Miodrag Stojkovic said that the construction of this centre will create conditions for young scientists to remain or return to Serbia.

The main novelty of the centre is that it will have a bank of stem cells which does not exist in our country and in the region within 600 kilometres, and we have a need for several such banks where cells are kept under strictly controlled sterile conditions so that they could be put back into the human body, Stojkovic explained.

At this moment, cells from blood and umbilical cord are currently being sent abroad, 2000 samples times €2000 leave Serbia every year, and all this can be done here.

Geneticist Miodrag Stojkovic, who is also editor of the "Stem Cells" magazine, presented the 2011 Young Investigator Award to Eva Ana Meyer Blazevskaja, who works at the University of Erlangen Nuremberg in Germany.

Stojkovic explained that she received this $10.000 award for showing in an original way how stem cells from hair follicles can be used for treatment of diseases of the cornea of the eye.