PhD candidates

Seung Joon Kim

Rajewsky lab, MDC, Berlin, Germany

Nationality: South Korea        Master degree: Purdue University Indianapolis, USA

Seung Joon Kim What was the title of your master thesis? Effects of Collagen gel stiffness on Cdc42 activities of Endothelial colony forming cells during early vacuole formation

What is the key objective of your PhD project? Development of a method for total RNA sequencing in single cells that allows circRNA quantification

What do you like best about your new location? Multi-culture, light life style

What do you still need to get used to? Language (Both German and English)


Aristotelis Misios

Rajewsky lab, MDC, Berlin, Germany

Nationality: Greek    –    Master Degree: University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

What was the title of your master thesis?  Codon Bias and the Cell cycle

More info coming soon!


Tamas Sztanka-Toth

Rajewsky lab, MDC, Berlin, Germany

Nationality: Hungarian    –    Master Degree: University of Cambridge, United Kingdom 

What was the title of your master thesis? Chromosome-wide analysis of cytosine methylation outliers in Arabidopsis thaliana 

More info coming soon!


Marwan Zouinkhi

Preibisch lab, MDC, Berlin, Germany

Nationality: Tunesian    –     Master Degree: Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology of Sousse

More info coming soon!


Stephen Nuthalapati

Bindereif lab, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany

Nationality: Indian    –    Master Degree: Vellore Institute of Technology

More info coming soon!


Anna Didio

Bindereif lab, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany

Nationality: Russian    –    Master Degree: Saint Petersburg State University

More info coming soon!


Alvaro Centron

Bozzoni lab, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

Nationality: Spanish        Master degree: Pablo de Olavide University,  Spain

What was the title of your master thesis?Searching for gene clusters related to virulence by coding sequence conservation

What is the key objective of your PhD project?To analyze the function of circRNAs in muscle differentiation and tumoral cell lines and their biogenesis

What do you like best about your new location? Rome is the eternal city and it offers a lot of things to see and do. Also, I have found wonderful people in my lab.

What do you still need to get used to? Public transport still has a long way to go before being efficient.


Patryk Polinski

Irimia lab, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Barcelona, Spain

Nationality: Polish    –    Master Degree: Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland

More info coming soon!


Ines Lucia Patop

Kadener lab, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel now Brandeis University, MA, USA

Nationality: Argentina    –    Master degree: Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

InesWhat was the title of your master thesis? Signaling by pheromone in Saccharomyces cerevisiae , effect of the physical interaction between the receptor Ste2 and the inhibitory protein Sst2.

What is the key objective of your PhD project? Unraveling Molecular and Physiological functions of circRNAs. Transcriptome analysis of D. melanogaster brain at SingleCell level: Deconstructing-Reconstructing circRNA function.

What do you like best about your new location? The campus is really nice, the Israelis are also super nice and the landscapes are beautiful.

What do you still need to get used to? Some details regarding the security controls, religious people and being away from home.

Note: During the Project, Ines relocated together with her host Prof. Sebastian Kadener from Hebrew University, Israel to circRTrain Partner Brandeis University, MA, USA.


Liviu Ionut Moldovan

Kjems lab, Aarhus University, Denmark

Nationality: Romania    –    Master degee: medical degree from Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie „Iuliu Hațieganu” din Cluj-Napoca

More info coming soon!


Iju Lo

Qiagen, Aarhus, Denmark

Nationality: Taiwan    –    Master degree: Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Munich Germany

IJu.Lo_PhotoWhat was the title of your master thesis? The Evolution of FtsX Domain Proteins in Firmicutes Bacteria

What is the key objective of your PhD project? To find potential biomarkers and causative agents in aging and related neurological diseases from brain tissue and biofluid

What do you like best about your new location? Friendly people and food

What do you still need to get used to? Climate


Mateja Rybicka-Tesulov

Pasterkamp lab, UMC Utrecht, Netherlands

Nationality: Austrian    –    Master degree: University of Vienna, Austria

workWhat was the title of your master thesis? Oxytocin receptor signaling in developing interneurons

What is the key objective of your PhD project? To dissect the role of axon-guidance-gene derived circRNA in brain development.

What do you like best about your new location? The people, that everything is “lekker” and “gezellig”, the canals, flowers and bicycles.

What do you still need to get used to? The dutch weather.


Andreia Gomes Duarte

Pasterkamp lab, UMC Utrecht, Netherlands

Nationality: Portugal    –    Master degree: Faculty of Sciences University of Lisbon, Portugal

andreiaWhat was the title of your master thesis? Study of the effects of HGF treatment in cells derived from the bronchial epithelium of patients with cystic fibrosis: evaluation of its regenerative versus oncogenic properties

What is the key objective of your PhD project? To unravel the functional role of circRNAs in neurological pathologies and establish new therapeutic targets in TLE and ALS.

What do you like best about your new location? To be surrounded by the beauty of the canals, wide variety of green areas and to cycle everyday.

What do you still need to get used to? Different food and bad weather!


Sabine Seeler

Kjems lab, Aarhus University, Denmark

Nationality: German    –     Master Degree: Heidelberg University, Germany

More info coming soon!


Eoghan O’Leary

Hansen lab, Aarhus University, Denmark

Nationality: Irish    –     Master Degree: University College Cork, Ireland

What was the title of your master thesis? Biochemical confirmation of protein-protein interactions and the phosphorylation status of the human RNA-binding protein, SMAUG1

More info coming soon!