ingrid.lohmann@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
My love story started 17 years ago in San Diego, when I first discovered Hox genes and Drosophila. Ever since I am fascinated by them and will not stop until I have hunted them down and understand all their secrets. I have to admit though that I sometimes wanted to abandon them, but they are way too cool!
I sit in my office, write papers and grants, no more fly pushing but one day I want to do INTACT, ChIP, dissect testes ... I love in situs, when you develop the colour and all of a sudden you see the pattern of expression of your currently favourite gene, fascinating!! And I would love to learn how to do cool bioinformatics analyses ;)
My preferred markers are intelligence, persistence, coolness, persuasiveness, friendliness ....
Early bird, intensive thinker, multi performer
Well, I prefer a cup of coffee when I have to wait and I like to listen to cool music!
katrin.domsch@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
I have a short and intensive relationship with a Hox gene named Ubx. It’s not really long but with a lot of passion. We met on the mesodermal level during embryogenesis and maybe our relationship will go on and through the larval stages. Since you, my dear, are involved in mesodermal and neuronal matching I will try to chase you down to your hiding or location in your chromatin home.
Ubx & TM1 staining during late embryogenic stages, that shows a whole and beautiful muscle pattern (red) with little Ubx positive nuclei (green)
TM6, Sb, Dfd-lacZ
intensive thinker, late starter, fly kisser
A little Rosinenbrötchen (little roll with raisins) a day will take all the stress away!
kerem.yildirim@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
CRISPR and injection
Tubby and stubble
Multi performer, fly pusher, talkative person
Drinking coffee and thinking/planning about what I should do next
xuefan.gao@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
The journey begins here. I have a long-term interest, wondering how neurons find their path and their partners. I started with figuring out how a circuit may look like - dissecting neural circuit underlying social behavior; then continued with mapping cell surface players’ network - searching for protein interactions among guidance cues and receptors. Now I have jumped inside into a neural stem cell - looking at the transcriptome from the point of view of genetic coding. As Hox genes are classical spatial organizers, by studying their network and their targeting logic, the overview of developmental design for neural circuits hopes to be clearer.
Classical fly genetics, all kinds of imaging, biochemical protein interaction screens. Maybe will combine with ChIP related techniques and transcriptome bioinformatics soon. ^^ I love adapting small smart assays.
CyO (Wg-Z), Stubble
Night owl for sure, slow but deep and intensive thinker, nature lover
Collecting flies, or 10 min outside to catch sunshine /sunset when there is!
patrick.vannieropysanchez@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
I had a small peak into the diffusion dynamics of Hox proteins during my internship in Ingrid's lab. I developed a liking for Drosophila as a model species, and I decided to apply for a PhD position in Ingrid's lab. Now I work on understanding the mechanisms of stem cell control in the Drosophila testis.
Testis dissection and immunofluorescence stainings
Tubby
Inventive thinker, fly kisser/matchmaker, virgin collector
Collecting virgins
raul.gonzalez@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
My short but intense career as a researcher has been always bound to Drosophila. I studied Biology, and as a biologist that I am, I have curiosity about practically everything. However, during the last few years, most of my questions have been focused on the area of development, and especially on how cells acquire their identity within the body of a multicellular organism. That is one of the multiple reasons that drived me to study the role of the Hox genes in the development of Drosophila melanogaster.
Staining and dissection of larvae and embryos
CyO, tubby and scutoid
Night owl, fly kisser and virgin collector
Reading papers or collecting virgins
shubhanshu.pandey@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
My introduction to experiments on bench and model organisms started with the work focused around Drosophila Homeotic genes, and specifically, the role of non-coding DNA elements in governing the expression of Hox genes. And since then the mysteries of Hox genes, ranging from their typical mysterious arrangement of chromosomes to the functional diversity at protein level, makes me wonder every single time! I would admit that I had second thoughts of switching to different model organism and still study Hox, but the amount of experiments and the diversity of fundamental questions that can be investigated through fly biology, made me stick to fruit flies.
Immunostainings to look at cool patterning genes, haven’t had done these yet but techniques to probe chromatin architecture like ATAC, 3C based techniques
Stubble, curly, ebony/ Tm3sb, Cyo
Late riser, always mis-calculates travel time, patient listener, ambivert, analytic thinker which ranges from why do I see an extra band in the gel to is that music track original or stolen
Listening to music, a quick run for coffee/tea, sometimes passively scrolling through social media
singh.aakriti@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
I joined the lab as a HiWi and then never left
Killing them (:
CyO and tubby
Do not perceive me
Trying to find escape routes in the building
petra.kaspar@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
It was a series of coincidences that led me to the Hox field. Towards the end of my studies, being still young and unexperienced, I was shanghaied by a group of harmless looking fly addicted people who made me work on Drosophila homeobox transcription factors night and day. After a couple of years, I managed to escape, but apparently I had not learned from this, because Ingrid succeeded in luring me into her lab by offering me the reign over her Hox kingdom. And here I am this very day, annoying my colleagues with nasty rules and trapping careless students that are as unexperienced as I once was…
Generation of transgenic flies, antibody staining, in situ hybridization.
Brd, CyO
Early bird, fly kisser/matchmaker
Unfortunately, not so much these days, because I am too busy thinking of new chicanery for my colleagues. But whenever I find the time, I visit my little stock collection and stroke the flies that need special care.
rafael.martinez@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
The start of my journey in molecular biology began during my bachelor thesis where I was fascinated by how instructions in a genome could build a complete living organism. I became particularly interested in the technologies used to understand genetics. Thanks to this interest I contributed to the development of diagnostic tools for human diseases as well as improving workhorse methods like molecular cloning to study spatial protein expression in Arabidopsis thaliana. Now I got the opportunity to work with Drosophila and I am very impressed by the range of possibilities that this little fly offers to understand biology and to develop (of course!) new molecular technologies. This new episode has just started and there are so many new exciting things to learn!!
So far anything that has to be with cloning. I would like to go more into genome editing.
I like Venus, both the fluorescent protein and the planet.
Extremely analytic (Sherlock-like), patient, creative and always keen to learn something new. I used to be a night owl (I still want to believe it!).
Thinking about what makes the stopwatch working.
bernhard.glass@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
I came to the lab just a couple of years ago but I am now known as the "Fliegenkoch", since I prepare the food for all fly groups at COS. Other than that, I am responsible for the stock collection and for making the ladies in the cleaning kitchen happy.
I prefer to flip the flies :)
Any Balancer is fine, I have a hard time to recognize them.
Early bird
That is my secret!
justyna.lisges@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
My story begins already a couple of years ago, when the group settled down in Heidelberg. But actually, I am not interested in Hox or flies, I have no clue about fly pushing or genetics! I take care of everything that is not related to science, my terrain is the administrative side of the Lohmann lab!
Early bird, intensive thinker, multi performer
A cup of coffee sipped in silence for a few minutes
Still water
| Postdocs: | |
|---|---|
| Julie Carnesecchi: | Research Fellow, CNRS, Lyon, France |
| Nadia Edelsztein | Fani Papagiannouli: | Research Fellow, Margaret Fuller lab, Stanford University, USA |
| Pedro Borges Pinto: | Postdoc, Yad Ghavi-Helm Lab, IGFL, Lyon, France |
| Maria Polychronidou: | Editor "Molecular Systems Biology", Heidelberg, Germany |
| Srividya Tamirisa: | Postdoc, Ferran Azorín Lab, Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Barcelona, Spain |
| PhD Students: | |
| Daniela Bezdan: | Research Associate, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, USA |
| Aurelia L. Boy: | Graduiertenakademie, University of Tübingen, Germany |
| Jana Friedrich: | Postdoc, Prieto-Godino Lab, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK |
| Nati Ha: | Postdoc, DKFZ, Benedikt Brors lab, Heidelberg, Germany |
| Stephanie D. Hueber: | Scientific Staff, University of Konstanz, Germany |
| Sebastian Sorge: | Postdoc, Alex Gould Lab, Francis Crick Institute, London, UK |
| Petra Stöbe: | Scientific Staff, CeGat, Tübingen, Germany |
| Jessica Velten: | Scientific Project Manager at Rejuveron Senescence Therapeutics, Barcelona, Spain |
| Zongzhao Zhai: | Postdoc, EPFL, Bruno Lemaitre lab, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Master Students: | |
| Christian Altbürger: | PhD student, Wolfgang Driever lab, University of Freiburg, Germany |
| Clara Baader | PhD student, Prisca Liberali lab, FMI, Basel, Switzerland |
| Fatmire Bujupi: | PhD student, Peter Kramer lab, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany |
| Maike Graf: | PhD student, Helge Grosshans lab, FMI, Basel, Switzerland |
| Janin Grajcarek: | Fellow Senior Associate, McKinsey |
| Andreas Hunczek: | Research Fellow, Forschungszentrum Kinderkrebs-Zentrum-Hamburg, Germany |
| Laura Zoe Kreplin | PhD student, Senthil Arumugam lab, Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Australia |
| Juliane Mundorf: | PhD student, Mirka Uhlirova lab, University of Cologne, Germany |
| Michael Piechotta: | MPI for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany |
| Jenny Rätzer: | PhD student, Mathias Treier lab, MDC, Berlin, Germany |
| Stephanie Rosswag de Souza: | PhD student, Elvan Böke lab, CRG, Barcenola, Spain |
| Naima Ruhland: | PhD student, Steffen Lemke lab, Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Martin Schaefer: | Postdoc, CRG, Luis Serrano lab, Barcelona, Spain |
| Lisa Schardt: | PhD student, Petra Boukamp lab, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany |
| Julia Schröder: | Master student "Developmental and Stem Cell Biology", Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Sokrates Stein: | Group leader, SNF Ambizione, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Jonas Theelke: | PhD student, The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden |
| Nils Trost: | PhD student, Henrik Kaessmann lab, ZMBH, Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Jelena Vulic | |
| Bachelor Students: | |
| Natascha Bartsch: | Master student "Developmental and Stem Cell Biology", Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Martina Blank: | Biologist, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil |
| Vanessa Disela: | Master student "Molecular Biosciences", Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Matthias Janeschik: | Master student "Evolutionary Biology", Erasmus Mundus Master Programme, Europe |
| Pauline Jeckel: | Master student "Neurowissenschaften", University of Tübingen,Germany |
| Simone Mumbauer: | PhD student, Hamaratoglu Dion lab, University of Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Katrin Schaak: | Postdoc, MRC Center for Regenerative Medicine, Edinburgh, Great Britain |
| Michaela Wölk: | Master student "Developmental and Stem Cell Biology", Heidelberg University, Germany |
| Internship Students: | |
| Samantha Brunel: | Paris, France |
| Elisa Fernandez: | Madrid, Spain |
| John Figueira Hasbun: | Maastricht, The Netherlands |
| Caroline Henry: | Sorbonne University, Paris, France |
| Natalie Grace Schulz: | Boston, USA |
