About Me
Scientist by training, product leader by choice, and an irredeemable nerd somewhere in between.
Lučka Bibič started her career studying spider venoms, which earned her the lifelong nickname "Spiderwoman, PhD" and a permanent fascination with things that are complex, misunderstood, and underestimated. That instinct never left. It just found new territory.
These days she leads pipeline transformation at one of the world's largest scientific publishers and speaks internationally on AI, leadership, and reinvention — most recently at We Make Future in Bologna and Women in Tech Global. The idea she leads with fits in a few words: find your team's venom, protect it, and build with it. The venom is the judgment only your people have — the one thing AI can't replicate — so you'd better know what yours is.
Off stage, she writes as Miss Solvent on Substack, mostly essays on becoming, endurance, and the chemistry of change. She's also an long-distance runner, mostly on mountain trails, and believes some races you finish, some you don't, and both teach you something.
Slovenian by origin, based in the Netherlands, happiest near the sea or the mountains. Say hello if any of that sparks an idea.
Snapshots from my recent talk
Watch my talks
I write essays on reinvention, becoming, and endurance under the name Miss Solvent — the same threads that shape how I think about leadership and change.
Essays on Reinvention, Becoming & Endurance
Contact Me
My inbox is always open, you can contact me with the contact form here or with the details below:
Articles
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Bold, beautiful and brutal: My Journey Into the World of Skyrunning and Beyond
For years, I never considered myself a runner. Until that changed.
The Making of a Mitragynine
The natural herb kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), isolated from the leaves of a psychoactive medicinal plant, is used as a remedy for pain.
On a Mission to Write Like a Scientist – and a Poet
Six years ago, my brand-new university degree qualified me to apply for a Ph.D. program studying strange stuff in strange places.
Recipe for Life: Prebiotic Synthesis of Lysine-Containing Compounds
Life as we know it originated in the form of a prebiotic soup of organic molecules that somehow began to replicate themselves.
Life in Multi-color: Harnessing Electrochromic Materials for Optical Recordings
Optical recording is a promising method to monitor a cell’s electrical activities by detecting optical signal changes.
Entering Uncharted Waters by Probing Nanoparticles’ Interactions with Cellular Membranes
Nanoparticles have been explored for use in biomedical applications including gene and drug delivery.
Tailoring the Stability of Synthetic Collagen
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body and the key component in connective tissue.
Using Magnets to Turn on Melanin
Melanin is the pigment responsible for human skin and hair color─and it helps protect skin cells from sun damage.
Deconstructing Nature’s Unusual Herbicidin Biosynthesis
Herbicidins are a broad class of adenosine-based nucleoside antibiotics with an unusual tricyclic core.
Broadening the Horizons of Protein-Polyarene Conjugates
Catalyst-transfer polymerization (CTP) has made it possible to synthesize conjugated polymers with control over their length, sequence, and end-groups.
Chasing 100k: April and May
Part 4: One could easily argue why anyone in one’s right mind would want to aim for a goal such as 100 kilometers of running.
Chasing 100k: Once a Marathon Runner, Always a Marathon Runner?
Part 1. I’ve spent so much of my life convinced that not moving forward automatically meant sliding back. I thought running was an easy way to measure that.
Lighting Up Ruthenium Complexes to Fight Cancer
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photochemotherapy (PCT) are two cancer treatments that use light to target and destroy tumor cells.
Chasing 100k: March
Part 3. A long run needs discipline and strategy to run at the right pace — not too fast and not too slow. Five years ago, I had neither.
Chasing 100k: February
Part 2. No no no. Not me. I could never train for 100k.
Those words, my words, rang in my ears as I looked down at my Garmin watch.
Those words, my words, rang in my ears as I looked down at my Garmin watch.
Expanding the Toolkit of Click Chemistry with CABL
Light-activation is an ideal way to drive chemical transformations in biological processes.
Puzzling out the total biosynthesis of colchicine
Colchicine is among the oldest natural plant products that has been successfully used to treat and prevent systemic inflammatory conditions.
To Science, or Not To Science? Alternative Careers For PhDs
As a grad student aspiring to finish within a year or so, I find it scary to be constantly reminded of the ruthlessness within academia.
New strategy turns on acetylation of proteins
Acetylation is one of the most common protein modifications in eukaryotes.
Watching Cyanine Dye in Living Cells
Scientists can monitor biochemical processes in living cells by noninvasive optical methods such as fluorescence imaging.
Prussian Blue Analogues under Pressure
Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) are a group of versatile cyano-coordination polymers.
What's your poison?
To most of us, drugs come from the pharmacy: home of bottled remedies and packaged pills.
Highly Reactive Carbocations Tamed in Water Microdroplets
Cations bearing a positive charge on an alkyl carbon are some of the most reactive carbocations, similar to radicals or carbanions. But unlike the latter two, scientists have been mostly unable to make use of the former.
Here Comes Supertwistacene: Graphene’s Twisted Superhero
Graphene is a modern wonder material. It possesses unique properties of strength, flexibility, and conductivity while being abundant and remarkably cheap to produce.
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