Ana Nikolic | Top 40 Under 40 2025

Age: 39

Occupation: Neuropathologist, Alberta Precision Laboratories; Assistant Professor, University of Calgary

As a kid, Ana Nikolic asked her father to buy her video games. Instead, he gave her a book on coding and told her to build her own.

That advice set her on the path to where she is now — a researcher and physician who uses computational techniques to find clues about glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer in adults.

“I like solving puzzles,” Nikolic says.

Nikolic moved to Canada from Serbia in the 1990s with her family and won major awards for her coding skills while still in high school.

She went on to medical school and became a neuropathologist.

Today, she analyzes brain tissue samples from patients to diagnose neurological conditions and help guide treatment.

She runs a research lab at UCalgary’s Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, where she focuses on glioblastoma. Over the last decade, treatments and outcomes for glioblastoma patients haven’t improved. Most patients still die within a year of diagnosis. Nikolic and her team look at how glioblastoma cells change, evade treatment and lead to recurrence.

She has amassed a remarkable publication record: 21 peer-reviewed publications, including three in high-impact journals where she was the lead author. She is one of the first people worldwide to use a method called single-cell ATAC-seq to study glioblastoma cells, and she co-discovered a unique structure called TULIP in a rare pediatric brain tumour.

For these efforts, she received a prestigious early career award from The Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network in 2022.

Her work adds to the understanding of how glioblastoma cells change in time and space — findings that may help develop new therapies for this brutal disease.

These cells are so sneaky, she says. “It makes me more motivated.”

Thank yous
“My husband Chris, my son Elliott, my parents and sister for their love and support over the years; Dr. Jennifer Chan, Dr. Marco Gallo and Dr. Jeffrey Joseph for their mentorship, and the members of my lab for their dedication to making our scientific vision a reality.”