Our Team

After gaining her M.Sc. degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Bogazici University in Istanbul, Canan moved to the University of Turin, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2002 in Molecular and Experimental Pathology with Guiseppe Poli. After her postdoctoral studies in Michael Karin’s laboratory at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California San Diego, she became junior group leader in Internal Medicine at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Technical University of Munich in 2005, where she habilitated in 2010 in the field of Experimental Medicine and worked as a group leader at the Institute of Molecular Immunology from 2012 to 2013. From 2016 to 2020, Canan worked as a group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry II at Goethe University Frankfurt; since 2020, she has been a group leader at the Institute of Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapy at Georg-Speyer-Haus. In August 2023, she took up her position as Professor (W2 TT) of Tumor Metabolism at the Georg-Speyer-Haus. The professorship is funded by the LOEWE Center Frankfurt Cancer Institute (FCI). Her laboratory investigates metabolic changes in cancer with a particular focus on the regulation of the microbiome with special emphasis on circadian rhythms. 

Dr. Zhaodai Bai is a staff scientist. Zhao has gained his doctoral degree in Department of Human Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, Shandong University (China). He has completed his postdoctoral study on the odorant receptor genes during differentiation of the multipotent cell lines ex vivo in Max Planck research unit for neurogenetics, Frankfurt am Main, with Peter Mombaerts, Ph.D, M.D. Zhao brings his experience in stem cell culturing and in embryo techniques. In TCF he is responsible for mES targeting and clonal cell line generation for chimera models.

Dr. Szilvia Baron has obtained her master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Szeged (Hungary). Later, she joined the Laboratory of Cellular Transport Systems the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and has completed her PhD studying the role of Secretory Pathway Calcium ATPases in calcium signaling. Between 2012 and 2017 she has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), explored the molecular players of bacterial adaptation and solved the structure of type I Mycobacterium tuberculosis Fatty Acid Synthase. In 2017 she moved to the Tel Aviv Medical Center as Senior Scientist. Her investigations at the Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Research Laboratory focused on the tumor immune microenvironment of inflammatory conditions (IBD, JIA) and tumors (Ewing Sarcoma, Osteosarcoma, Lymphoma) in the pediatric population. She joined the FCI Organoid Biobank team as Staff Scientist in 2024 April and she is responsible for the operation and further development of the FCI Organoid Biobank.

Tierärztin 

Müge Bozlar Müge received her Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University (Turkey) in 2019. She started her Master’s degree under the supervision of Asst. Prof. Bahar Değirmenci at İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University. During her Master’s thesis, Müge mainly focused on the characterization of fibrogenic cells and the identification of original structures in the fibrotic liver. In June 2022 she joined Florian Greten’s lab as a PhD candidate. Currently, she is investigating cancer-associated fibroblasts and their cellular interactions with other components of the tumor microenvironment of colorectal cancer.

Fatih studied biology and obtained his MSc degree in molecular biology from Uludag University (Turkey). In 2002, he started his PhD in Ulf Rapp's group at the Institute of MSZ in Würzburg. During his thesis work, he focused on the role of MAPK signaling in murine lung cancer. In 2008, he obtained his PhD degree and continued to work as postdoctoral research scientist in the same laboratory at the Max-Planck-Institute in Martinsried. In 2012, he moved to Owen Sansom's lab as a senior postdoctoral fellow to perform research on colorectal cancer at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow (UK). In December 2015, he joined the Greten lab as a staff scientist to continue working on human colorectal cancer.

Sevgi completed her Bachelor’s and Master`s degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Bogazici University (Turkey). During her master studies, she focused on novel nod like receptors. She joined the Greten Lab for her PhD in September 2022. Sevgi analyses the complex interplay between colorectal cancer cells and stromal components of the TME during therapy.

Maria Correia da Silva Melo has studied Molecular Genetics and Biomedicine, Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she absolved her Master thesis on the ‘Characterization of doxorubicin-sensitive and resistant colorectal cancer cell spheroids’. In her current PhD project she investigates the epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in 3D colon cancer models using single cell analyses and microscopic read-outs.

Tahmineh Darvishi has obtained her Diploma in Biology in 2003 from the Goethe University Frankfurt. During her previous work at the Georg-Speyer-Haus as a research technician in the lab of Professor Groner she gathered experience in various molecular and cell-culture related techniques. Since 2014, she works as a lab manager in the group and supports our research projects.

Christopher studied medicine at Würzburg University and obtained his medical degree in 2020. He also completed his MD-thesis at Würzburg University in the Department of anesthesiology. In 2021 he began working as a physician at Hannover Medical School in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Infectious Diseases and Endocrinology with a focus on Hepatology and Gastroenterology. He joined the Greten Lab in March 2024 to focus on paracrine mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance.

Julian obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Bioinformatics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and continued on as a PhD student under Prof. Dr. Ebersberger in the group for Applied Bioinformatics in 2018 where he worked in the field of comparative genomics. During his thesis, he focused on in silico protein comparison in evolutionary studies as well as in the field of alternative splicing. He joined the Greten lab as a Bioinformatician in February 2024 to assist in computational analysis and develop pipelines for single-cell RNA-seq data integration.

I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biotechnology and Animal Physiology at University of Science (Vietnam) in 2012. During my master, I worked in Laboratory of Stem Cell Research and Application as research staff to study breast cancer on mouse model. I moved to Germany when I received the scholarship for PhD student at Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology from 2012 to 2016. In 2020 I worked for a start-up company in Frankfurt, especially focusing on iPSC and cardiac-organoids. Since June, 2023, I joined the Greten lab as a technician.

Doktorandin

Esther Engel studied Biology at the Leibniz University Hannover and received her diploma in 2007. After that she worked for several institutes, especially focusing on in vivo models. Since September 2019 she joined the Greten lab funded by the LOEWE Center Frankfurt Cancer Institute examining therapy response of rectal cancer patients.

Henner received his Ph.D. from the Medical University Hannover (laboratory of Andreas Kispert) and then studied intestinal stem biology in the laboratory of Hans Clevers (Utrecht, NL). He joined the GSH in 2014 as a DKTK junior group leader and since 2019 coordinates the FCI organoid biobank. In 2025 he has been appointed as Heisenberg Professor for ‘Explorative Models for Human Colorectal Cancer’. His group studies the signaling crosstalk in the colon cancer microenvironment using patient-derived organoids and stromal co-cultures to identify mechanisms that affect therapy responses.

Gautami completed BSc (Blended) in Bioscience, a special degree granted by Savitribai Phule Pune University (India) and designed by University of Melbourne (Australia). Later during the training at IISER Pune (India), she studied the role of Api5 protein in breast carcinogenesis and explored her joint interest in molecular and cancer biology. In 2023, she was awarded with Master of Molecular Biology degree from The University of Queensland (Australia) and her master’s thesis focused on molecular profiling of mixed ductal-lobular carcinoma- a rare subtype of breast cancer. In her current PhD project, she is investigating the complex tumor microenvironment to trace efficacy of conventional chemotherapies and vasculature targeting agents in breast cancer with multi-omics approach. Gautami joined the laboratory in February 2024.

Thorsten Geyer is the specialist for occupational safety at the institute and advises the employees and responsible group leaders in all matters relating to occupational health and safety. As radiation protection officer, he is responsible for organizing the relevant facilities and communicating with the supervisory authorities.

Johanna obtained her Bachelor's degree in Biology at TU Darmstadt and then switched to Goethe University Frankfurt to continue with a Master's program in Molecular Medicine. After an internship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, she completed her Master's with a thesis on CEA-specific chimeric antigen receptors, working in Prof. Buchholz's lab at the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut in Langen. In July 2023, she joined the Greten lab as a doctoral researcher, focusing on cell therapeutic approaches to treat colorectal cancer, continuing to work in collaboration with the Buchholz lab.

Andrea obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Turin (Italy). His main focus was the role of the microenvironment in breast cancer progression and during his internship at Uppsala University he studied Intrinsically-disordered regions (IDR) mediated protein interactions. After graduating, he moved to the University of Iceland to study the mechanism of transcriptional regulation on the single-molecule level. In October 2023 he joined Florian Greten’s lab as a PhD candidate.

After earning a bachelor's degree in Biotechnologies from the University of Versailles in 2007, Alan began working at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Orléans. There, in the laboratory of Professor Claudine Kieda, Alan contributed to developing a cell-mediated gene therapy targeting tumor angiogenesis. In 2013, Alan joined the laboratory of Dr. Philippe Chavrier at Institut Curie in Paris, where he focused on studying the transition of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) to invasive breast carcinoma. In 2017, Alan relocated to Lausanne, Switzerland, to become the lab manager in Professor Michele De Palma's laboratory. He played a key role in researching the tumor microenvironment in lung cancer and in developing a new dendritic cell vaccine approach (EVIR). By 2024, Alan joined Professor Arkan's lab as a research technician.

Young Soo obtained her Bachelor’s in Chemistry and Master’s in Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Groningen. For her Master's thesis, she focused on applying nanotechnology in the context of drug delivery and targeting to improve the efficacy of nano-based therapies in oncology. She joined Mélanie Tichet’s research group as a PhD researcher in June 2024. Her PhD projects dive into characterizing the myeloid-derived suppressive cell (MDSC) population to propose remodeling strategies that will potentially improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy. 

Laura studierte Bioinformatik an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg und promovierte am Institut für Pharmazeutische Chemie der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. In ihrer Doktorarbeit beschäftigte sie sich mit der KI-gestützten Generierung von Liganden für nukleäre Rezeptoren und der Vorhersage von deren Bioaktivität. Seit Januar 2025 arbeitet sie als Postdoc im Oppermann-Labor und beschäftigt sich mit der Integration von künstlicher Intelligenz und der Verknüpfung von Multi-omics-Daten in der funktionellen Präzisionsonkologie.

Christian Issing is a resident at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Medical University Frankfurt and he obtained his MD in 2021 on a research project on clinical improvement of cochlear implant therapy. Christian has joined the group in 2020 as clinician scientist on a project on derivation and characterization of organoids of head and neck tumors. His project is funded by the Frankfurt Cancer Institute and the Mildred-Scheel-Nachwuchszentrum (MSNZ) program and aims to develop new preclinical tumor models.

Juraj earned his Bachelor and Master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. His graduate work focused on the environmental impact of end-of-life vehicles, leading to the development of a patented modular recycling system. He subsequently worked in renewable energy, recycling systems design, and wood product automation. Inspired by a passion for engineering, Juraj transitioned his focus to microengineering and computational biology. In the Tatarova laboratory, Juraj is developing image analysis pipelines and bioinformatic tools to study drug effects in complex tumor tissues from mice and cancer patients. He joined the laboratory in September 2023.

I am Zeynep from Istanbul, Turkey. I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Genetics and Bioengineering from Yeditepe University in 2019. I then pursued a Master's degree at Boğaziçi University, where I worked under the guidance of Dr. Tolga Sütlü. My Master's thesis focused on the co-receptor-mediated regulation of T-cell receptor signalling in natural killer cells. In June 2023, I joined AG Arkan as a Ph.D. student. My current research is focused on unravelling the connection between dietary patterns and the structure and function of the microbiota during cancer and its treatment, with a special interest in understanding the intricate mechanisms of immune responses. I enjoy travelling, film festivals and art galleries in my spare time.

Kilian studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg and received his degree in 2019. During his studies, he joined the translational surgical oncology research group of Prof. Martin Schneider at the Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital. There, he studied the role of HIF-Prolyl hydroxylases in the development of colitis-associated carcinoma. Kilian joined the Greten lab in September 2019 as a PhD candidate and is currently investigating into the role of cancer-associated fibroblasts as well as deubiquitinating enzymes in colorectal cancer.

Sara Khosraviseftejani obtained an Bachelor's degree in Medical Laboratory Science at the Shahid Sadoughi University of Yazd and graduated with a Master's degree in Medical Microbiology at the Hamedan University of Medical Science in Iran. In Munich she started as research assistant in 2021 on several projects on breast cancer and vaccine development. At the Georg-Speyer-Haus she joined the Greten group in June 2023 as technical assistant.

Felix ist der Labormanager für die Transgenic Core Facility (TCF) und der AG Grote. Seine Ausbildung zum biologisch-technischen Assistenten (BTA) erwarb er an der Johannes-Gutenberg-Schule in Heidelberg. Mit seiner Expertise in molekularbiologischen Techniken unterstützt er die TCF und AG Grote tatkräftig bei der Generierung von neuen transgenen Stammzellen und deren molekularbiologischen Charakterisierung.

Alena Kress has studied Biological Sciences at the University of Konstanz, where she absolved her Master’s project on the characterization of phagocytic receptors for the recognition and elimination of pathogenic bacteria in the lab of Prof. Christof Hauck (Department Cell Biology). She has joined the lab in 2021 and her current PhD project addresses immune-epithelial interactions in the colon cancer microenvironment

Hana Kunkel joined the Greten lab in 2016 and is responsible for lab management.

Svenja earned her bachelor's degree in biology at Goethe University in Frankfurt. She wrote her bachelor's thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim. She also remained in Frankfurt to pursue her master's degree in Physical Biology of Cells and Cell Interactions. After a semester abroad at the University of Barcelona, she completed her master's degree with a thesis at the Paul -Ehrlich-Institut in Langen. In October 2025, she began her work as a doctoral researcher in the Seehawer laboratory. Here, she is investigating the development of bladder cancer in the context of histone modifiers.  

Marco schloss seine Ausbildung zum Tierpfleger (für Forschung und Medizin) 2013 bei Provadis/Sanofi ab. Anschließend war er im Max-Plank-Institut in Bad Nauheim für die Zucht, Haltung und Versuchsbetreuung mehrerer Arbeitsgruppen verantwortlich. 2016 fing er als Tierpfleger im Georg-Speyer-Haus an und beaufsichtigte unter anderem das MRT. Seit 2018 betreut er das MRT als Teilzeitkraft und studiert Biologie an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Jennifer earned her PhD in Molecular Virology from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. After postdoctoral research at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), where she developed nanobodies as antivirals against norovirus, she joined the Edinger Institute at Frankfurt University Hospital in 2021. There, she and her colleagues established the Spatial Biology Lab and used spatial technologies to study the tumour microenvironment in brain tumours, with a focus on tertiary lymphoid structures. In 2026, she moved to Georg-Speyer-Haus, where the lab now operates as a core facility and she continues her research.

Hola, this is Angeles from Gran Canaria, Spain but living abroad for so many years already. I started my adventure at Coventry University where I got my BSc in Biology, after that I moved to Germany and - coincidence of life - GSH was the first place where I started to work in the lab of Dr. Manuel Grez´ group. My deep knowledge working as a Lab Research Assistant was acquired at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research at Dr. Gilles Laurent´s group where molecular biology and cell culture techniques together with working with turtles and lizards was my focus. Now I am here again being part of GSH and having the opportunity to get further in my career and working with in vitro tool systems to model host-microbiome interaction. As I am coming from an Island, I love to spend my time outside with friends and meeting people from different countries.

Lucie completed her Pharmacy studies at the University of Strasbourg, (France) graduating in 2025. In parallel, she pursued an international Master’s degree in Biomedicine at the University of Strasbourg and the University of Mainz, which she also completed in 2025. Her master thesis focused on the tumor microenvironment characterisation and tumor-immune cells interactions of prostate cancer at the IGBMC, Strasbourg, under the supervision of Dr. Metzger. In November 2025, she began her PhD at the Greten Laboratory, where she is currently investigating the tumor microenvironment in colorectal cancer.

Rian completed his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at The National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), now the University of Galway. He then went on to complete a two-year Masters in Cancer Biology at the University of Bordeaux, focusing on the characterization of the immune environment of ovarian patient-derived ascites and their impact on immune cell response and tumor cell behavior. Following his Masters, he joined Mélanie Tichet’s research group as a doctoral researcher in September 2024. His PhD projects will focus on the identification of key effectors of tumor evasion in the TME, with particular attention to the immunosuppressive mechanisms of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMS).

Constantin Menche has studied Molecular Medicine at the University Clinic Frankfurt and joined the lab as Master student to study epithelial stem cell plasticity. As part of the DFG research group “Cell plasticity in Colorectal carcinogenesis” he has then conducted a PhD project on the role of stromal Zeb1 during CRC progression. Currently, he works as a Postdoctoral researcher in the project “DKTK Organoid Platform” that aims to establish and characterize multicentric cohorts of tumor organoids.

Dominic schloss 2018 seinen Bachelor in Angewandter Biologie für Medizin und Pharmazie an der Hochschule Fresenius, Idstein, ab, gefolgt von einem Master in Molekularer Medizin an der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt im Jahr 2020. Für den Masterabschluss stieß er zur Arbeitsgruppe von Lisa Sevenich am Georg-Speyer-Haus und blieb als Doktorand. Seit November 2024 übernimmt Dominic die Leitung der Imaging Core Facility am Georg-Speyer-Haus. 

Ahmed worked as a clinical pharmacist at the Children’s Cancer Hospital 57357 in Egypt. In 2023, he obtained his master’s degree in molecular biology, an inter-university programme among KU Leuven, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, and the University of Antwerp. In 2022, he did a summer internship at the Fendt Lab for cancer metabolism. During his master’s thesis, he was involved in the development of a biosensor for the detection of hydrogen peroxide inside the cell at the Messens Lab for redox signalling. In August 2023, Ahmed joined the Greten Lab as a Ph.D. student to investigate the molecular mechanisms in the tumour microenvironment of colorectal cancer.

Leoni received her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Technical University of Darmstadt, where she investigated immunogenicity of cell death at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research for her thesis. In her Master thesis in the group of Dr. Tatarova, she explored histopathology staining methods and bioinformatic tools to study resistance mechanisms in the breast cancer tumor microenvironment. After receiving her Master degree, Leoni continues with her project as PhD student in the lab with a DKTK CORTEX fellowship aiming to develop an analytical platform to predict immunotherapy response and resistance in breast cancer patients. Leoni joined the laboratory in September 2023.

Ryan earned his binational bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology in both the university of Strasbourg and the university of Saarland and wrote a bachelor thesis in the lab of Prof. Dr. Sandra Iden on skin resident cell polarity under metabolic and redox alterations. During his masters, he studied developmental and stem cell biology at the university of Heidelberg, and joined the lab of Prof. Dr. Sergio Acebrón to complete his master thesis on the topic of cell signalling and crosstalk in colorectal cancer. In October 2025, Ryan joined the Seehawer lab as a doctoral researcher to investigate the early development of breast cancer under histone modifiers and epigenetic dysregulations.

Benardina Ndreshkjana has a master’s degree in pharmacy from the University of Milan. She has absolved her PhD at the University Clinic Erlangen under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Regine Schneider-Stock (Department of experimental tumor pathology) on the study of mechanisms to overcome chemoresistance. In her current work that is funded by the EU-project “EUbOPEN” she has developed a 3D drug screening platform. The project aims to understand drug-resistance mechanisms in patient-derived tumor organoids

Haifa obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biotechnology from the University of Mumbai, India. She later moved to Germany in 2021 to pursue a second Master's degree in Molecular Medicine at the University of Tübingen. After completing her internship at Roche in Penzberg, she joined NCT-Dresden as a technical assistant, where she worked on patient-derived tumor organoids and spheroids. In June 2025, she joined the Farin group as a technical assistant in the FCI Organoid Biobank.

Dr. Marina Pešić graduated at University of Belgrade (Serbia), Faculty of Biology in 2007. During her diploma thesis she worked in Prof. Jelena Milasin’s laboratory of Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics, Institute of Biology and Human Genetics, School of Dentistry, University of Belgrade (Serbia). In 2008, she started PhD in Prof. Lars Zender’s group at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig before moving with the group to University Hospital Tübingen. During her PhD work she was applying RNAi based functional genetic and genomic approaches to study liver cancer and liver regeneration. She was involved in the development of transposon based stable shRNA technology that can be used to conduct pooled shRNA screens directly in vivo. She joined the Greten lab as a Postdoc in 2014. She is currently working on the functional identification of new modulators of metastasis in colon cancer.

Edison finished his bachelor's degree in 2022 in biochemistry at the university of Wuerzburg. Following his bachelor's degree, he began his master's studies in molecular oncology at the university of Wuerzburg as well. His interest in cancer research led him to join Dr. Mélanie Tichet's lab group for his master's thesis in June 2024. His project focuses on studying metastasis of primary tumours and the reprogramming of tumour-associated macrophages after drug treatment.

Dr. Birgit Ritter studierte Biologie an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität in Jena. Im Jahr 2010 begann sie ihre Promotion im Labor von Falk Nimmerjahn an der Universität Erlangen und untersuchte die Rolle von Effektorzellen in der Antikörper-abhängigen Melanomtherapie. Nach einer weiteren Postdoc-Phase, in der sie sich mit der Antikörpertherapie bei Colitis beschäftigte, ist sie seit 2016 als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im Greten-Labor tätig. Hier ist sie mit der humanen CRC-Biobank, der wissenschaftlichen Koordination und dem Schreiben von Zulassungsanträgen betraut. Seit 2018 ist sie auch Leiterin unserer Histologieabteilung.

Sandra Rogala graduated in Biosciences at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and worked in the research group of Prof. Dr. Koessl for her bachelor’s thesis and in the group of Dr. Momma for her master’s thesis on the effect of cell-cell communication through extracellular vesicles on glioblastoma. She conducted her PhD thesis in the research group of Dr. Phillip Grote on lncRNAs in the cardiovascular system. Since 2023 she joined the lab as a postdoc and focuses on lncRNAs in the tumor microenvironment of acute myeloid leukemias to identify potential lncRNAs as drug targets.

Eva received her training as a medical technical assistant in 1999 in Würzburg and joined the Georg-Speyer-Haus in 2005.

Vanessa Schmidt has been trained as research technician at the Ludwig-Geissler-Schule in Hanau and subsequently studied biochemistry at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, where she obtained her Master’s degree. She has joined the team in 2023 to support the “DKTK Organoid Platform” that aims to establish and characterize multicentric cohorts of tumor organoids.

Tierärztin

Marco studied in Braunschweig and Tuebingen in Germany focusing on cell biology and cancer. He started his PhD in 2014 in Tuebingen in the Lab of Prof. Dr. Lars Zender working on the influence of the microenvironment on epigenetically driven tumor plasticity. Deepening his interest in cancer epigenetics, in 2020 he joined the lab of Prof. Dr. Polyak at Harvard Medical School/Dana-Farber-Cancer Institute in Boston, US. Supported by his EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship, he explored mechanisms of mutations in histone modifier leading to metastases and targeted prevention therapies. 

Dr. Christoph Steup studied medicine at the University of Ulm and obtained his medical degree in 2020. During his thesis, Christoph investigated the role of Protein kinase D1 in progression and metastasis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in Prof. Dr. Thomas Seufferleins Lab in Ulm. Since 2020 he is working as a physician at the Medical Clinic 1 at the University Hospital of Goethe University in Frankfurt. Christoph joined the Greten Lab in 2023 as a Clinician Scientist. He is investigating mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy in colorectal cancer.

Sara Stier has obtained an education as research technician in Wiesbaden and subsequently studied biology at the Technical University of Darmstadt, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree. Now she has joined the team to support the drug-screening assays as part of the EU-project “EUbOPEN”.

Despina obtained a B.Sc. in Informatics from TU Clausthal and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from Goethe University Frankfurt. At Hessian.AI, her Master’s thesis focused on mitigating shortcut learning in deep neural networks for medical imaging. During her master’s, she worked at Fraunhofer ITEM, developing ML-based anonymization methods and bioinformatics tools for preclinical data analysis. In May 2025, Despina began her Ph.D. in the Arkan Lab, focusing on the intersection of machine learning, cancer biology, and the microbiome. She uses interpretable AI, statistical modeling and causal inference to study how tumor-host-microbiome interactions, including circadian dynamics, affect cancer progression and treatment response. Her work aims to identify biomarkers and build predictive tools for personalized oncology.

Mélanie completed her PhD in Nice, France, at the INSERM U1065/C3M institute, working in the laboratory of Sophie Tartare-Deckert, where she studied the metastatic potential of cancer cells. Notably, they identified the matricellular protein SPARC, secreted by melanoma cells, as a microenvironmental mediator that promotes metastasis. She then conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Douglas Hanahan at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, focusing on the tumor microenvironment (TME). Her work centered on understanding susceptibility, innate and acquired resistance to therapies, and the mechanisms behind immunosuppressive barriers in cancer, using various genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs). In 2024, she joined Georg-Speyer-Haus to establish her own research group. Her lab explores immunoregulatory mechanisms within the TME and therapy resistance, using models of melanoma, glioma, and pancreatic cancer.

Buenas! I am Irene from Spain. I have a Master in Integrated Quality Management for the Prevention of Environmental and Occupational Risks, as well as a Master in Reproductive Medicine and a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Immunology from the University of Granada (Spain), where I characterized the dendritic cells and NK cells from maternal tissue isolated from spontaneous abortions. In 2008, I moved to Berlin and worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Charité Hospital in Berlin. From February 2015 I worked in the group of Dr. Medyouf at GSH and since 2023 in the Transgenic Core Facility. There I am responsible for the generation of transgenic mice and manage all aspects around transgenic services.

Mike received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Exeter in the UK, before transitioning to computational cancer biology. He pursued a postdoc in the lab of Itay Tirosh at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, studying intra-tumour heterogeneity using single-cell and bulk RNA-seq. He joined GSH in September 2024 as a junior group leader. His lab applies data integration approaches to study the changes in cellular heterogeneity during tumour progression.

Bert has obtained his master’s degree in Bio-pharmaceutical sciences in September 2020. During his studies he was involved in the synthesis and testing of an affinity based probe for the CCR2 receptor at the Leiden academic centre for drug research. Next to this he was active at Merck in Darmstadt where he was responsible for the crystallisation of proteins and automatization of this process by training and implementing an image classifier. After working in quality at Johnson and Johnson he joined Florian Greten’s lab in May 2022 as a PhD student to investigate the roles of fibroblasts in rectal cancer and their implication on current cancer therapies.

Maresa received her training as a biological technical assistant in Überlingen/Bodensee. She joined the Georg-Speyer-Haus in 1999. In 2016 she switched to the Medyouf-Group to assist lab members in project related experiments and mouse colonies management.

Yishu completed her Bachelor's degree in Biology at Beijing Normal University and pursued a Master's program in Immunology at the University of Zurich. During her Master's thesis, she delved into cancer immunology. Following an internship in biomedical engineering at ETH Zurich, she joined the Tatarova lab as a PhD student in February 2024, where her research centers on cancer stem cells and investigating the role of innate and adaptive immunity in breast cancer therapy resistance.

Ceyda finished her bachelor's degree in molecular biology and genetics at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Türkiye. She obtained her Biosciences Master's degree from the University of Würzburg with a strong emphasis on Molecular and Computational Biology. For her master's thesis, she investigated the impact of the Influenza A virus infection and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease on human respiratory tissue models through single-cell RNA-seq data. Her current work at Mike Tyler's lab focuses on the analysis of cancer progression from early malignant state to metastasis via scRNAseq.