Gordana Zdunić was born on January 18, 1976 in Belgrade where she completed her primary and secondary education. She graduated from Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Belgrade in April 2002, with an average grade of 8.68. At XXXII Krka prizes in October 2002, she was awarded for her graduate theses entitled “Statins in therapy of hyperlipoproteinemias and coronary heart diseases”.

She has been employed at the Institute for Medicinal Plant Research “Dr Josif Pančić” from February 2003, at the Department for Pharmaceutical Research and Development in Science Department, at the position of the principal research fellow from 2020.  She completed an internship at Pharmacy Belgrade and passed the professional exam for the Master of Pharmacy in 2004. She has started working on her PhD Thesis entitled "Comparative chemical analysis and pharmacological profile of extracts of selected species of the genus Hypericum L." at the Faculty of Pharmacy in 2007 and successfully defended it in January 2013.

From 2003, she has been participating in numerous national scientific projects financed by relevant Ministry as well as in international scientific projects such as SEERA.NET Plus, UNESCO project with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Cross-border Programme Serbia – Montenegro under the Instrument of Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II), OPCW projects, Horizon 2020-MSCA-RISE-2017, and bilateral projects with the Republic of Slovenia, Croatia, China, and France and Montenegro as a project leader.

Beside scientific work she is engaged in formulation of new medicinal plant-based products realized through research and development activities at the Institute and projects financed by the Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia in the frame of collaboration with the economy sector. She participated in the Project of Science and Economy Cooperation Program “Development of new bio-pesticides for seed protection – ECOPEST”.

Dr. Zdunić has published over 100 scientific papers in international and domestic scientific peer review journals, she is the author of chapters in international monographs, and a number of announcements from international and national conferences. Her citation index is 29, according to the Scopus index base, number of citations (excluding self-citations) is 2943. She is involved in education of young researches by participation in master theses and doctoral dissertations.

The main research areas are pharmacognostic field research and evaluation of natural resources, ethno-botanical research, chemical composition and pharmacological activities of medicinal plants (endemic, rare or endangered species, species used in traditional medicine, as well as potentially new medicinal species) and autochthonous fruit varieties and waste products, herbal products formulation.

Dr. Zdunić was the President of the Scientific Council of the Institute and participated in the work of the Section for Medicinal Plants within the Pharmaceutical Association of Serbia. She is a member of the Gesellschaft für Arzneipflanzenforschung/Society for Medicinal Plant Research (GA), in Germany.

She is fluent in English and basic in Russian.    

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5793-3739