Dr. Petar Brlek is a physician, inventor (patent holder), and the founder and president of the Young Members’ Section of the Croatian Society for Human Genetics (HDHG). He is also a member of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG). He received Croatia’s national “Oscar of Knowledge” award from the Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports for outstanding academic achievement at the national and international levels. In 2020, he was awarded the Rector’s Award for his research “In silico analysis of genetic, transcriptional, epigenetic, and protein alterations in the EGFR-PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling pathway in diffuse brain gliomas.” Dr. Brlek graduated with honors from the University of Zagreb School of Medicine in 2021 and subsequently joined the Center of Excellence for Precision and Personalized Medicine at St. Catherine Specialty Hospital. In 2022 and 2023, he trained at leading international genetic laboratories in whole-genome sequencing under the mentorship of world-renowned experts. At the invitation of the Centers of Excellence, the Croatian Pediatric Society, and the Croatian Academy of Medical Sciences, he has delivered numerous invited lectures on the application of whole-genome sequencing in oncology, pediatrics, and personalized medicine. In July 2023, he was elected president of the Young Members’ Section of HDHG, and in November of the same year he became the first medical genetics resident in the history of the Republic of Croatia. He is an active participant in national and international conferences and has been recognized multiple times for scientific excellence. To date, he has authored more than 50 scientific papers, conference abstracts, and books in the fields of molecular oncology, bone and cartilage metabolic disorders, neurometabolic diseases, personalized and regenerative medicine, and immunology.

From 2023 to 2025, Dr. Brlek served as the Clinical Research Coordinator at St. Catherine Specialty Hospital on a project focused on applying whole-genome sequencing results to nutrigenetic analysis and obesity prevention in children and adults. Alongside his clinical work, since 2023 he has been teaching at the University of Zagreb Faculty of Science and the University of Osijek School of Medicine. His areas of interest include medical genetics, genomics, molecular oncology, personalized medicine, as well as cell and gene therapy. As a member of the International Society for Applied Biological Sciences and the European Society of Human Genetics, he played an active role in organizing the 13th ISABS Conference on Applied Genetics and Mayo Clinic Lectures in Translational Medicine, which brought together Nobel Prize laureates and more than 500 internationally recognized experts in genetics, forensics, and personalized medicine. In 2025, Dr. Brlek became the patent holder of an innovative AI model that leverages whole-genome sequencing data to predict the risk of developing multifactorial diseases and to guide personalized treatment strategies.