Danijela Matic Vignjevic was trained as a molecular biologist at University of Belgrade and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a postdoc at Insitut Curie, she started her independent team in 2013 when she got interested in how epithelial cells interact with their microenvironment (focusing on extracellular matrices and fibroblasts) in homeostasis and during cancer invasion. Her research strategy combines molecular and cell biology techniques with live-cell imaging using different model systems such as 2D and 3D in vitro cell cultures, tissue slices cultured ex vivo and different transgenic mouse models. She is a recipient of a European Research Council starting grant (2013-2017) and a consolidator grant (2018-2023). She has received several awards, including the Grand Prix in Cancer Research from the Foundation Simone et Cino del Luca, and the Dandrimont-Benicourt from the French Academy of Science.