Melina Butuci

Melina Butuci
Current city: Redwood City, CA (Silicon Valley)
College: Zagreb PMF & USC

Melina Butuči, Ph.D. is a Croatian scientist and she’s currently working at a biotech start-up in the Bay Area as a researcher in the immuno-oncology field. Melina was born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia where she got her bachelor’s and master’s degree at Prirodoslovno-Matematički Fakultet (PMF) in Biology, and after graduation she moved to Los Angeles to pursue her Ph.D. at University of Southern California (USC) in Molecular Biology. She relocated to San Francisco to further her career in leukemia research as a postdoc at UCSF which led her to her current position as a scientist at Allakos.

Melina has been an active ACAP member for the past year and was heavily involved in planning the #ACAP2018 conference in Silicon Valley last fall. She has been involved in the Medical Tourism Task Force, as she is also interested in bringing more biotech related projects to the table. Melina is passionate about contributing to cancer research and pushing the field forward in hope to have an impact in people’s lives. When she’s not pipetting in the lab, you can find her running a marathon or a Spartan Race, rock climbing, scuba diving or climbing the aerial silks.