Welcome to Noémie Chabot !

Noémie was born in a small town close to Paris. She fell in love with genetics in her first science classes in middle school. After high school, she studied medicine in Paris and received her Bachelor’s in medical sciences. Then, she switched from medicine to research and graduated from the Magistère Européen de génétique in Paris Diderot University. During her Master’s, she had the opportunity to work on the HOX gene evolution in plankton (Oikopleura dioica) in the Chourrout group, Center for Marine Biology in Bergen, Norway. Afterwards, she had a great experience studying the effects of compressive stresses on C. albicans in the Holt group, NYU, New York. Finally, she did her Master’s thesis with Dr Escude’s group at the Natural History Museum of Paris, where she worked on the evolution of alpha-satellite sequences in Cercopithecini. Now, she begins a new chapter in the Vastenhouw lab. She will be focusing on understanding early gene transcription in zebrafish and the biophysical mechanisms involved in that process. Exciting!

​During her free time, she likes to play the violin (be careful of your ears), travel, and build her family tree.

Welcome to Edlyn !

Edlyn Wu. Canadian. Molecular biologist and biochemist. Edlyn completed her MSc and PhD in the lab of Dr. Thomas Duchaine (McGill University, Montreal), where she investigated the mechanism of microRNA-mediated gene silencing, using C. elegans as a model organism. With a passion for traveling and a long standing interest in zebrafish and early developmental biology, she moved to Dresden and joined the Vastenhouw group for her postdoc in January 2017. In Lausanne, Edlyn will continue to investigate the molecular events that regulate the timing of zygotic genome activation and is looking forward to take part in science communication activities.

Welcome to Hann !

Hann comes originally from the state of Johor in Malaysia. For his higher education, he left sunny Malaysia and moved to Leeds, UK where he completed his Bachelors and Masters degree. It was then that he was recruited to Dresden, Germany by the Vastenhouw lab to do his PhD where he is working to understand the genetic features that kickstart early transcription during zygotic genome activation. Having just moved with the lab to Lausanne, he will continue this research but now in an exciting new environment!

Welcome to Shivali !

Shivali has done her bachelor’s and master’s in India. As a part of her Bachelor’s project, she worked on the DNA Binding and DNA cleavage properties of transition metal complexes in the lab of Dr. Anupa Kumbhar. She did her Master’s by research from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Prof. Mahendra Sonawane’s lab, where she worked on the interplay between polarity and adhesion in the zebrafish epidermis. She has now joined the Vastenhouw Group at the CIG for her PhD!

Welcome to Martino !

Martino has studied Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. For his Master Thesis he studied how the synaptic transcriptome changes over time in the mouse cortex. He then joined the Vastenhouw Laboratory for his PhD at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden. He has studied the spatial organization of transcription in the nucleus using the early development of the zebrafish as a model, and will continue doing so here at CIG.

Welcome to Monalisa !

Monalisa Das obtained her Master’s degree in microbiology from Allahabad Agricultural Institute, India, and joined Prof. M. R. S Rao’s Lab at JNCASR, Bangalore, where she worked on the role of non-coding RNAs in cancer. Subsequently, she moved to Switzerland and worked with Prof. Rory Johnson at the University of Bern, where she studied the role of transposable elements in the localization of long noncoding RNAs.

She joined Prof. Van Leeuwen’s lab in January 2021 for few months to work on the project involving the generation of knockout human cell lines to screen for genetic suppression interactions for DNA damage repair genes.