Stefan studied medicine at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, where he obtained his MD studying the role of BMP 1-3 signaling in bone fracture healing. He continued his scientific interest by joining the Dikic group in 2014 for 2 years, while he was focused on the characterization of the newly identified protein SPRTN and identified its essential role in DNA damage repair as a protease that cleaves DNA-protein-crosslinks. Subsequently he started his clinical and neurologic career first as a resident at the Clinic for Neurosurgery for 2 years and since 2019 at the Clinic for Neurology at the Goethe-University. He is in parallel continuing his scientific work at the Dr. Senckenberg Institute for Neurooncology and after achieving a fellowship from the Goethe-University Patenschaftsmodell he rejoined the Dikic group for 2020 to study the role of SPRTN and DNA-protein-crosslinks in brain tumors.