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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.