20 Years of Expertise
Biljana Kakaraskoska Boceska
Dr. Biljana Kakaraskoska Boceska started in LAB-Net as deputy coordinator for North Macedonia. When the opportunity appeared, she joined the core COMBACTE LAB-Net team as medical microbiologist and researcher. Now, she is responsible for assessing local laboratories performance all over Europe, conducting tailored trainings when needed, and providing technical and operational support for these laboratories.
20 Years of Experience
Dr. Kakaraskoska Boceska has 20 years of extensive expertise in the field of microbiology and public health, both as a doctor and researcher. She is passionate about this field, which she finds both fascinating and rewarding, for a number of reasons:
“Medical microbiology is often overlooked as a specialty among the medical doctors community. We increasingly lose patients to resistant bacterial strains and there is a significant misuse of antibiotics. The latest pandemic has shown that microbes have the power to disrupt our way of life, our freedom and cause a devastating economic impact. If we look further, there are studies showing how guts microflora can affect even mental health”.
“Medical microbiology is often overlooked as a specialty among the medical doctors community. We increasingly lose patients to resistant bacterial strains and there is a significant misuse of antibiotics.”
— Biljana Kakaraskoska Boceska
National Coordinator at CAESAR
Dr. Kakaraskoska Boceska got her MD degree at the St. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia.
“After my graduation I started working at the Institute of Public Health of RNM, within the virology department. At the same time I started my specialization in Microbiology as well as master studies in Public Health, all at the same University. After finishing my specialization I started to work within the Bacteriology and AMR department, spending years of working with blood samples and respiratory tract infections in patients in the ICU”.
For 10 years now Dr. Kakaraskoska Boceska is also a national coordinator and data manager of CAESAR* (Central Asian and European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance) network, focusing on the antimicrobial resistance and diagnostic and antimicrobial stewardship.
*CAESAR is a joint initiative of the WHO Regional Office for Europe, the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). CAESAR is part of the Global initiative GLASS, the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System.
- "Extending my knowledge and network in the field of AMR, including important insights of the whole genome sequencing, is also a part that I especially enjoy and was one of my top priorities when joining the LAB-Net team"
ECRAID-Base
LAB-Net is COMBACTE’s laboratory network, and has already started and will continue its activities in Ecraid, once the COMBACTE project comes to an end.
“I am involved mainly within the ECRAID-Base project” she adds. “POS-VAP, POS-cUTI, and POS-Disease X”. In COMBACTE, Dr. Kakaraskoska Boceska is involved in HONEST-PREPS and SAATELLITE-2.
Working in LAB-Net has broaden her horizons in the microbiology field. Mainly thanks to the opportunity to communicate extensively with different experts from all over the world. “Extending my knowledge and network in the field of AMR, including important insights of the whole genome sequencing, is also a part that I especially enjoy and was one of my top priorities when joining the LAB-Net team” says Dr. Kakaraskoska Boceska.
When she is not working in the lab, Biljana seizes every opportunity to travel with her husband and her two teenage daughters. “Especially on road trips across Europe, exploring beautiful old cities like Prague, Budapest, Munich, or Zagreb”. She also has a passion for cooking and baking, “although sometimes it feels more of a need than a hobby” she adds smiling.