Principal Investigator
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Magdalini is Associate Professor of Biomedicine at the Department of Quantitative Biomedicine of the University of Zurich. She is fascinated by the molecular events that lead to neurodegeneration and has been studying these phenomena since 2001. Originally trained as a pharmacist in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), she did her PhD on prion diseases in the laboratory of Adriano Aguzzi at the University Hospital of Zurich (Switzerland). As a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Don Cleveland at the University of California in San Diego (USA), she used high-throughput sequencing approaches to understand the function of TDP-43 and FUS, two RNA-binding proteins that are associated with the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). She joined UZH as an SNSF Assistant Professor in 2013 and since then, her research team studies the molecular mechanisms of ALS and FTD with emphasis on the interplay between protein aggregation and RNA misregulation. Magdalini was awarded the EMBO Young Investigator Award (2018), the Georg-Friedrich Götz Prize (2015), the SNSF Professorship (2013), the HFSP Career Development Award (2013) and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2011). She is actively working for gender equality in academia and serves on the Gender Equality Committee of the Neuroscience Center Zurich since 2014. When not in the lab, Magdalini enjoys family time, especially with her two sons, Lennart, born in San Diego in September 2012 and Kilian, born in Zurich in 2018.
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Academic guest
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Geraldine is from Normandy (France). She is a cell biologist, specialized in neuroscience with a 20-year expertise in cellular work. She completed her undergraduate and Master’s degree in Biochemistry from the Université de Caen. She obtained a PhD in cell biology and neuroscience from the Université de Caen, studying the role of serine protease and cytokines in neuronal apoptotic cell death. After her PhD, she joined the Ella Bossy-Wetzel lab at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, San Diego, to study the dysfunction of mitochondrial fission in neurodegenerative diseases, with a specific focus on Huntington’s disease. She then joined the Frédéric Saudou’s lab in Institut Curie in Orsay to continue to study Huntington’s disease, this time focusing on vesicular transport defects of the BDNF receptor, TrkB. Next, she obtained an Associate Professor position at the Université Paris Saclay (previously named Université Paris Sud 11) and worked for 5 years on molecular mechanisms responsible for migration and invasion of melanocytes in aggressive uveal melanoma. Since 2016, she has joined the CEA/MIRCen to study the role of Dclk3 in Huntington’s disease, the physical interaction between LRRK2 and alpha-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease, with focus on mitochondrial and autophagy dysfunctions. In the past 2 years, she started a new project to decipher the role of a mitochondrial protein, SFXN1, in neuronal physiology and neuropathology. In June 2022, she joined the Polymenidou lab as academic guest. Outside the lab, she loves swimming, reading detective novels and spending time with her family.
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Postdoctoral fellows
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Marian was born in Trencin, Slovakia and studied Biology at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. He completed his master thesis during his Slovak Gas Industry (SPP) Foundation fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. Marian did his PhD at the Charles University in Prague and at the Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics, where he was involved in the generation and characterization of the transgenic Huntington’s disease minipig model. During his EMBO Short-Term fellowship at the University of Aarhus, he studied the first minipig brains expressing mutant huntingtin and was also involved in the mapping of the pig telencephalon. He was a visiting graduate student at the University of California in San Diego where he focused on the development of cell and gene therapies for ALS. After defending his PhD thesis in 2013, and a short postdoctoral work at UCSD, Marian joined the Polymenidou lab in August 2014. In his postdoctoral studies, he aims to understand the relative contribution of the different pathogenic mechanisms thought to cause ALS and frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTD) in patients with C9ORF72 hexanucleotide expansions. He also aims to identify the molecular mechanisms involved in sporadic ALS using iPSC-derived motor neurons. In his free time, he enjoys traveling and recreational basketball and biking.
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Pierre is a French neuroscientist. During his Ph.D. at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, he studied the role of VEGF in the regulation of NMDA receptor trafficking at the synapse. After his Ph.D., Pierre did a short postdoc on deciphering cellular mechanisms involved in limbic encephalitis before starting a new position at the University of Chicago. As a postdoc in Chicago, Pierre joined Pr. Gopal Thinakaran’s team to work on the cellular biology of Alzheimer’s disease. Pierre’s project was focused on exploring the role of BIN1, the second genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He described for the first time the physiological expression of BIN1 in the brain of human and rodents, and the association of BIN1 with amyloid deposits. Pierre also worked on the role of BIN1 at the synapse and the role of BIN1 during myelination in maturating oligodendrocytes. During his postdoc, Pierre used various animal models to explore cellular and physiological questions. In the Polymenidou group, Pierre plans to develop a new animal model to study the seeding and the proliferation of TDP-43 pathology using human-TDP-43 extracts in vivo. Such a model would bring new insights on the pathological processes involved in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), two fatal neurodegenerative diseases for which no treatment to cure or slow down disease progression is yet available. This model will offer opportunities for testing new potential treatment(s). Outside of the lab, Pierre likes to play music, watching tv-shows, hiking, biking, swimming and traveling, and have fun.
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Vera comes from The Netherlands, where she studied Molecular Neuroscience as part of the Biomedical Sciences master at the University of Amsterdam. During her study and internships, she got fascinated with the mechanisms driving human brain pathology. Therefore, she pursued a PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam studying the relation between tau pathology and granulovacuolar degeneration, two frequent neuropathological hallmarks in dementia patients. In November 2020, she joined the Polymenidou lab as a Post-Doc, focusing on the pathways of TDP-43 dysregulation in ALS/FTD. Outside the lab, she enjoys spending time with her family, friends and cat, traveling, playing tennis, shopping and reading.
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Carlo was born in a small city close to Naples, Italy and studied Medicine at the University of Genoa where he also completed his training as a Neurologist. During his residency he assisted ALS patients and was involved in several Italian and international clinical trials exploring novel therapeutic approaches for the cure of ALS. His interest in ALS investigation was not limited to a clinical approach. He was attracted by the prion and prion-like paradigm, proposed as a unifying pathogenetic mechanism for many neurodegenerative disorders, including ALS. He was interested in studying the prion-like features of TDP-43, a key player involved in ALS. With this aim, during his residency he joined the lab of Dr. Fabio Moda at Istituto Carlo Besta in Milan, to collect experimental data on TDP-43 in vitro aggregation. During this internship he acquired expertise in the in vitro amplification of prion and prion-like species by means of two powerful and innovative techniques, namely the protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) and the real time quaking induced conversion reaction (RT-QuIC). After his specialization he performed PhD thesis in the Prion Biology lab of Prof. Giuseppe Legname at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. The aim of his PhD project was to apply the RT-QuIC technology, already developed and standardized for prion detection, to TDP-43. During his PhD, he established an RT-QuIC assay for the detection of TDP-43 aggregates in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients affected by ALS and FTD. His work provided proof of concept that the RT-QuIC technology, is feasible also for TDP-43-related disorders and can be a powerful early diagnostic tool. He joined the Polymenidou lab in August 2021 as a postdoctoral fellow. In his postdoctoral studies he aims to develop novel therapeutic agents for ALS, focusing on stabilizing TDP-43 physiological oligomerization, while counteracting its pathological aggregation. He is also interested in further developing and optimizing TDP-43 in vitro aggregation assays and to exploit them to further elucidate TDP-43 pathology. During his free time, he enjoys sports (running, beach volley, biking, climbing), reading, watching movies and spending time with his friends.
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Ivan hails from Canada, where he completed an undergrad in biology at Western University, and a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering at McMaster University, both in the Toronto area. He moved to Switzerland to undertake his PhD work at the University of Basel under Prof. Michael Nash. There, he focused on the engineering of intrinsically disordered proteins/regions (IDP/IDR) as hemostatic agents for the management of acute hemorrhage. The result of this work was a molecule known as a hemostatic elastin-like polypeptide (hELP), which was able to specifically integrate into the fibrin networks that form the scaffold of blood clots and improve their hemostatic properties in a phase-dependent manner. Ivan completed his PhD in 2021 and joined the Polymenidou lab as a post-doc in early 2022. Here, he aims to apply his experience in intrinsically disordered proteins/regions (which comprise as much as 51% of the human proteome!) to the study of TDP-43, an RNA-binding protein with an IDR that is implicated in the pathogenesis of ALS. The goal of his work is to engineer molecules that can disrupt the pathological aggregation of TDP-43, while not interfering with the physiological condensation that is necessary for TDP-43’s critical cellular functions. Additionally, he is studying the efficacy of immunotherapies targeting TDP-43. Outside of the lab he enjoys snowboarding, climbing, Sundays by the river, and the odd bit of pub trivia.
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Somanath was born in Nirna, a small village in the southern part of India. He studied Bachelor of Engineering in Biotechnology at the BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru. During his bachelor's studies, he developed a great interest in Neurosciences, so he then moved to Frankfurt to study Master of Science in Neurosciences. For his Master's thesis in the lab of Professor Jochen Roeper, he studied the functional and biophysical gating properties of voltage-gated calcium channels in the dopaminergic neurons of substantia nigra pars compacta and the firing properties of locus coeruleus neurons to understand their role in the sleep-wake cycle. He developed a particular interest in neurodegenerative diseases and he joined the lab of Professor Hilal A. Lashuel at EPFL to pursue his Ph.D. in Neurosciences. His Ph.D. thesis was focused on elucidating the structural and cellular determinants of a-synuclein seeding and toxicity using cellular and animal model systems of Parkinson’s disease. After successfully defending his Ph.D. thesis in August 2022, he joined the Polymenidou lab for his postdoctoral studies in September 2022. Here, he aims to understand the physiological and pathophysiological role of aggregation-prone TDP-43 and FUS proteins. In particular, he is interested in investigating the cell type-specific contributions to disease heterogeneity in order to better understand disease pathways using cellular and animal model systems. In his free time, he enjoys reading books, playing games such as chess, badminton, and cricket, and likes to travel.
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Athena comes from the island of Cyprus where she studied Mechanical Engineering (BSc, MSc) at the University of Cyprus. In 2020 she completed her PhD in ETH Zurich, Switzerland, at the lab of Petros Koumoutsakos in Computational Science and Engineering. During her PhD she focused on data informed, predictive simulations of blood microfluidics. The result of her work was the development of a data informed, transferable computational model for erythrocytes, calibrated and validated for the first time through Hierarchical Bayesian inference. The unique property of this transferable model was the inclusion of uncertainty in its predictions. During the next two years she held a joint postdoc position at ETH Zurich and the University Hospital of Zurich where she collaborated with the lab of Adriano Aguzzi, to develop algorithms and software for processing of large-scale 3D image data. In 2022 she was Associate of Applied Mathematics and Teaching Fellow in Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Currently she is developing image processing algorithms for super-resolution microscopy at the Polymenidou lab, and holds an External Lecturer position in ETH Zurich for the course High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering II. Her research interests include Image Processing, Bayesian inference, Uncertainty Quantification and Mathematical modeling and simulation.
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Genomic Data Scientist
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Izaskun completed her PhD in plant developmental biology in 2012 (Marcos Egea lab, Spain), with an emphasis in methods development for gene expression quantification. After that, she switched to epigenomics (Miguel A. Peinado lab, Spain; Tuncay Baubec lab, Switzerland; Mark Robinson lab, Switzerland) and released several methods and tools to analyze, browse and visualize epigenetic data. She joined the Polymenidou lab in October 2021 to work on transcriptomic data analysis of a variety of experimental approaches aimed at understanding the neurodegenerative processes in ALS/FTD. As a biologist and computer engineer by training, she is interested in the interface between life and computer sciences, and advocates for open science and free software. Her current research interests include gene expression regulation, single-cell technologies, and methods development. In her spare time, Izaskun likes reading, playing music, trail running, cross-country skiing, and bouldering.
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PhD Students
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Manuela was born in Spain and studied Biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid. During this time, she came to Zurich for a summer as part of the Biology Undergraduate Summer School (BUSS). She then moved to Germany in 2015 to continue her studies with a Master in Biology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. She finished her Master Thesis in the lab of Prof. Ulrich Hartl, where she worked on protein aggregation in ALS and FTD. After a year working as a research assistant, she joined the Polymenidou lab in September 2017 to start her PhD on the mechanisms of TDP-43 toxicity in neurodegeneration. Outside the lab, she enjoys movies, series, books and good food.
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Aurélie comes from Zurich, Switzerland. She studied Biochemistry at the University of Zurich. After an internship at the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics at the University of Oxford she decided to search for a master thesis that combines her two passions: Biochemistry and Neurobiology. Aurélie is interested in determining the full structure of TDP-43, to gain further understanding on how and why the protein misbehaves in ALS patients. After successfully defending her master thesis, Aurélie decided to stay with us for her PhD starting in December 2018. Outside the lab, she enjoys different kinds of sports and time with her friends and family.
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Elena is originally from Italy where she studied Pharmacy at the University of Pavia. In her final year she decided to pursue a career in scientific research, which is the reason why she spent a year at Imperial College London working for her master’s thesis in the field of sciatic nerve and spinal cord regeneration. After graduating, she moved to Barcelona for two years and worked at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) investigating the molecular mechanism of axonal injury and regeneration using state-of-art techniques such as PMDS compartmentalized culture and super resolution microscopy (nSTORM). In January 2019 she joined the PolyLab as a PhD student where she tries to elucidate mechanisms of toxicity of TDP-43 and FUS in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and FTD. Outside the lab she likes playing volleyball and working out at the gym, but she also loves watching TV series and movies on lazy days.
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Laura comes from a small village in Belgium and studied Biochemistry & Biotechnology at the University of Ghent. During her studies, she developed a keen interest in neurobiology and decided to join the Polymenidou group for her Master’s thesis. Here she studies the role of TDP-43 misregulation in ALS and FTLD. She aims to develop this passion into a long-lasting career path. She likes to spend her leisure time bouldering, cooking and venturing into nature with her Border collie. After doing her Master in our Lab, Laura decided to stay and started her PhD in March 2020.
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Weijia was born in China and studied Life Science and Technology at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Due to her wide interest in RNA, she worked on alternative translation start sites of RNAs as her bachelor thesis. During her exchange at ETH Zurich in 2019, she did a research project on RNP granules and cellular stress responses and since then, she developed a strong interest in biomolecular condensates especially in neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, after she went back to Japan, she chose to do her master thesis on protein aggregation in Parkinson’s Disease in order to learn more about the field. Weijia joined the Polymenidou lab for her PhD in December 2020 after enrolling in the Life Science Graduate School Zurich. In her free time she likes to go for walking, travelling or just stay with her cat and play video games.
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Ruchi was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. After completing her Bachelors in Biotechnology she decided to study the molecular basis of human diseases in her masters program. This is when she was introduced to ALS and other motor neuron diseases. Thus, developing a keen interest in the field of neurodegeneration. After spending time at a structural biology lab and learning protein purification, Ruchi made-up her mind to pursue her original interest in the pathology associated with TDP-43. At the Polymenidou Lab, she aims to find the role of phosphorylation on TDP-43 on its normal function and transition to disease. Outside the lab, Ruchi spends her time communicating scientific knowledge to high school students, writing science articles, making mandala art and cooking.
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Beatrice was born and raised in Italy where she obtained firstly a bachelor degree in Biological sciences and then graduated in the master program of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Eager to live an international experience and specialize herself in the field of Neurobiology, she spent the second year of her master at the University of Ulm in Germany with the Erasmus exchange program. There she accomplished her master thesis investigating synaptic impairment as a causative aspect underlying the degeneration of motor neurons in ALS. Due to her keen interest in neurodegeneration and ALS pathology, once back in Italy she completed an internship at the IIT (Centre for life nanoscience) in Rome where she was involved in a project aiming at generating an in vitro model of the neuromuscular junction, based on ALS mutant human iPSCs. In November 2021 she joined the Polymenidou Lab to pursue her PhD studies. In the Polylab she aims at taking advantage of patient-derived iPSCs in order to generate new neuronal models for the characterization of ALS and FTD pathology. In her free time, she enjoys being in nature, reading, travelling and spending quality time with her friends.
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Niklas grew up in Bavaria, in the south of Germany, and studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. Due to personal circumstances of a family member, Niklas has always been highly interested in the function of the brain and the nervous system. It was this curiosity that led him to pursue his bachelor’s thesis in the field of neuropharmacology, in which he synthesized a photoswitchable fentanyl derivative for the optical control of opioid receptors. Moreover, he performed several research internships, in which he investigated the epigenetic regulation in the brain or neuronal RNA transport and other relevant topics. In his Master Thesis project, he studied the physiological formation of phase-separated ribonucleoprotein granules in neurons with a particular focus on the role of RNA availability. After working as a research assistant and in industry, Niklas joined the Polymenidou lab in the beginning of 2023 for his PhD. Here, he aims to understand the role of posttranslational modifications of TDP-43 in neuronal physiology and degeneration. When not in the lab, he enjoys doing creative things, like drawing and making music, as well as bouldering or playing basketball with his friends.
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Master students
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Tamara lives in Solothurn, Switzerland and studied Biology at the University of Bern with a special qualification in Cell Biology. From young age she was interested in brain functions and the nervous system in general. For this reason, she performed her Bachelor thesis in the Zentrum für experimentelle Neurologie in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Inselspital Bern. In fall of 2022, she started her Masters in Neuroscience at the University of Zurich and joined the Polymenidou lab one year later for her Master thesis. Under the supervision of Aurelie and Weijia, she studies the properties of TDP-43 aggregation and how does that link to pathology in cells. In her free time, Tamara has a huge passion for exotic plants and interior design and likes doing sports such as hiking, running and dancing.
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Victoria was born in Vaud and grow up in a small village in the French part of Switzerland. She fell in love with Genetics during secondary school and decided to do her Bachelor in Biology at the University of Lausanne. Growing up, her mother took her many times to Zurich and she became really fond of this wonderful city. It was no surprise that she decided to join the University of Zurich to do her Masters in Genetics with a minor in Bioinformatics. Victoria finds that those two fields really go hand-in-hand as sequencing data gains all its meaning when it can be contextualized, stored and shared openly. In September 2022, she joined the Polymenidou lab for her Master project, which is focused in dissecting the role of TDP-43 self-oligomerization and RNA binding in pathological aggregation, supervised by Vera Wiersma, PhD. When she is not in the lab, Victoria enjoys wandering in the city or in nature, trying new sports at ASVZ and taking care of her house plants.
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Alexandra grew up in a small village in the canton of Zurich in Switzerland and studies Biomedicine at the University of Zurich. During her Bachelor studies she joined the Bourquin/Bornhauser lab at the Kinderspital of Zurich to investigate acute lymphoblastic leukemia. After her internship, she was able to stay there and work beside of her studies from January 2021 to December 2024. This experience made her realize that she wants to follow a career in research. She was always fascinated by Neuroscience and especially brain disorders. Then, in the final year of her studies, she attended a lecture by Prof. Polymenidou and decided that she wants to participate in ALS/FTD research. Therefore, she was very happy to join the Polymenidou lab for her Master thesis. Under the supervision of PhD student Elena Tantardini, she investigates the role of FUS in neuronal physiology to understand how its disruption causes ALS, using rodent and human neural models. Besides the lab work, she enjoys doing all different kinds of sports, reading and playing the piano.
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Julian was born in Offenburg, Germany, but has lived in Switzerland for a long time. Already at the beginning of his bachelor's degree in biomedicine, he became extremely interested in the brain and nervous system. Many diseases of the nervous system are fatal and not understood enough, which is why he decided to join the Polymenidou Group for his master thesis. With the help of a PhD student Elena Tantardini, he wants to gain more knowledge about the toxicity of FUS in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and FTD. Besides his studies, he is a passionate triathlete who completes several half-ironman distances a year and loves cooking.
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Jennifer grew up in Vienna, Austria, and decided to move to Zurich in order to study Biology at ETH. During this time, an exchange semester at the University of Copenhagen sparked Jennifer’s interest for Neuroscience and especially for neurodegenerative disorders. After learning about the research focus of the Polymenidou group during a short student project in the lab, Jennifer decided to deepen her understanding of the field and seized the opportunity to stay on for an internship. With the guidance of Elena Tantardini, she helped to investigated the role of FUS in the pathology of ALS and FTD. To gain more insight into another subfield of neuroscience, Jennifer subsequently completed an internship at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ) in the neuro-oncology laboratory of Prof. Dr. med. Weller, who is investigating CAR T-cell approaches for the therapy of glioblastoma.
Eventually, Jennifer rejoined the Polymenidou group for her Master thesis, during which she will explore the effect of phosphorylation on the behavior of TDP-43 in disease, under the supervision of Ruchi Manglunia. In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys to learn new languages and to go mushroom-picking or hiking, but she also appreciates a lazy day with a good book to unwind. |
Lab Technicians
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Zhongning Guo comes P. R. China, where she studied medicine and worked as a physician in the clinic of neurology in the rehabilitation hospital of north-east province Hei-Long-Jiang. Since 2000, Zhongning worked as a research fellow in different research laboratories of the University of Zurich, such as pulmonary respiratory medicine, rheumatology and haematology. With this work Zhongning gained and enriched her knowledge in multiple techniques, including in molecular biology, animal experimentation, cell culture, microscopy and histology. In January 2021, she joined the Polymenidou group as a senior research technician. In her free time she enjoys reading, hiking, photography and play the piano.
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Martina grew up in a small village in Graubünden, Switzerland and moved to Zurich to study Biochemistry at the University of Zurich. In her master’s thesis, she worked on structural biology of membrane proteins, expanding her knowledge in multiple techniques used in a biochemistry lab. After completing her studies, she joined the Polymenidou lab as a lab technician in May 2022 to support the team with various in vitro protein assays. Outside of the lab, Martina enjoys spending time with friends and family, swimming, hiking and reading books.
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Lab Manager
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Julien was born in the small town of Epinal in France. He studied Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Lorraine, Nancy. After several months of experience in different laboratories in Paris and in the USA, he moved to Zurich in September 2009. Since then, has worked in several labs at UZH, where he enriched his knowledge in multiple techniques (proteomics, molecular biology, animal experimentation) as well as in lab organisation. In May 2017, he joined the Polymenidou group as a Lab Manager. Outside the lab he enjoys reading, going to the movies with friends, running, swimming and handicraft.
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Administration
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Denise was born and raised in the Zurich area. Before joining UZH, she worked for various companies in Switzerland and amongst others led a private family office for a German art collector for contemporary arts. In March 2022 Denise joined DQBM as Administrative Assistant. She is married with one daughter and in her free time enjoys sports, being with friends and flying single engine airplanes.
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