Lab Members
Panagiotis (Panos) Ntziachristos (full professor & Principal Investigator)
Tim Pieters (Senior Research Specialist)
Jolien Van Laere (Lab manager)
Since I obtained my bachelor in pharmaceutical and biological laboratory technology in 2014, I have been working at Ghent University in the cancer research field. It’s a pleasure to work towards a better understanding of the development of cancer in such a high-tech environment. In 2022, I joined the Ntziachristos lab, and I really look forward to expand my knowledge in the field of T-ALL.
Since I obtained my bachelor in pharmaceutical and biological laboratory technology in 2014, I have been working at Ghent University in the cancer research field. It’s a pleasure to work towards a better understanding of the development of cancer in such a high-tech environment. In 2022, I joined the Ntziachristos lab, and I really look forward to expand my knowledge in the field of T-ALL.
Lindy Reunes (Lab manager)
After obtaining my bachelor in pharmaceutical and biological laboratory technology, I started working in the Center of Medical Genetics in the lab of Pieter Van Vlierberghe.
There I gained extensive experience in pediatric leukemia research with a diverse range of techniques, both in vivo and in vitro. Here in the Ntziachristos lab I hope to be a good practical help for my colleagues, while learning again new, exciting techniques with a different focus on leukemia research. After working hours, you can usually find me at the seaside while running, paddle boarding, walking my dog Monty or spending time with friends and family.
After obtaining my bachelor in pharmaceutical and biological laboratory technology, I started working in the Center of Medical Genetics in the lab of Pieter Van Vlierberghe.
There I gained extensive experience in pediatric leukemia research with a diverse range of techniques, both in vivo and in vitro. Here in the Ntziachristos lab I hope to be a good practical help for my colleagues, while learning again new, exciting techniques with a different focus on leukemia research. After working hours, you can usually find me at the seaside while running, paddle boarding, walking my dog Monty or spending time with friends and family.
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Cristina Borin (Graduate student)
I’m Cristina Borin and I’m an Italian girl who got her master’s degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Padova. I studied classical subjects in high school, but then I became passionate about science, and I decided to study Biology. During my bachelor’s degree at the University of Ferrara I had the opportunity to work for my thesis at the Veneto Institute of Molecular Medicine, where I studied type 2 diabetes, and most importantly I faced real biomedical research for the first time. I worked at the Paediatric Research Institute - Città della Speranza during my master’s degree thesis where my research focused on the study of the impact of circRNAs in T-ALL and B-ALL. I will join professor Ntziachristos lab as a PhD student where I will focus on characterizing aberrant splicing activity in acute leukaemia. While pursuing my PhD project, I hope to also give my support to the lab into different studies that will be developed and improve my knowledge and my skills, by working in a multi-disciplinary environment. I’m an outgoing person and after work I like spending time with friends and family. I love travel, animals, playing volleyball and almost all kinds of sports and music. |
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Jonas De Kesel (Postdoctoral Researcher)
My name is Jonas De Kesel. End 2021, I finished my PhD studies at the faculty of Bioscience Engineering at Ghent University. Years before, I graduated at that very same faculty as a Master of Science in Biomedical Biotechnology. From 2022 onwards, I am investigating the effect of protein (de-)ubiquitination on the splicing landscape in leukemia. Working towards translational outcomes that, at some point, may really affect people’s health, has always been my ambition. I hope that in the coming years I can contribute to the alike aims of the Ntziachristos Lab. Apart from a scientist, I am an amateur of old school vinyl records and like to spend quite some time on my race bike. |
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Igor Fijalkowski (Postdoctoral Researcher)
I'm Igor Fijalkowski. I obtained my PhD in 2016 at the Center of Medical Genetics in Antwerp, where I studied rare bone diseases and worked towards transforming the acquired knowledge into novel treatment strategies for osteoporosis, a disease growing in relevance in aging societies. Since then, I worked as a postdoc in the VIB Center of Medical Biotechnology, the UGent Laboratory of Microbiology and at the University of Heidelberg. My postdoctoral research focused on multi-omics integration, where I utilized transcriptomics, translatomics and proteomics to investigate the mechanisms of translation and to search for novel genomic elements in the unexplored genomic dark matter. I'm excited to join the Ntziachristos lab and apply my bioinformatic and omics experience to better our understanding of the splicing dysregulation in leukemia. After work, I'm a dad of two boys interested in IT, martial arts and all things nerdy. |
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Bijal Thakkar (Bioinformatics specialist)
I have obtained a master’s degree in bioinformatics from The Maharaja Sayaji Rao University of Baroda in 2012. After that, I worked as a bioinformatician for five years at a research institute (National Institute of Plant Genome Research) and a Reliance Industries Limited. I have done significant work on Genomics, transcriptomics, and small-RNA sequencing and built a bioinformatics data analysis pipeline. Research work I have done at Leibniz institute of plant genetics and crop research (IPK – Germany) from Gatersleben, Germany, on plant molecular biology. I have identified favourable alleles for ammonium and nitrate transporter genes that contribute to nitrogen uptake efficiency in winter wheat before and after green revolution cultivars. My PhD research focused on integrating 15N physiological data with omics and looking for alleles or critical amino acids responsible for the variation observed in nitrogen uptake efficiency. I’m excited about using bioinformatics skills to understand the splicing dysregulation in leukaemia in our group. |
Alumni
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Limin Sun (Lab manager). Current position: Lab manager, Northwestern University
Blanca Gutierrez (Graduate student). Yalu Zhou (Bioinformatician). Current Position: Project manager, Northwestern University Celestia Fang (Graduate student). Current Position: Medical School (MSTP), Northwestern University Adam Lorch (Bioinformatician, high-throughput technologies). Current position: Bioinformatician, Northwestern University Yixing Zhu (Research Technologist). Current position: Research Technologist at University of Chicago Kelly Marie Arcipowski (Postdoctoral Fellow). Current Position: Group Leader at Pfizer Inc Mina Tayari (Postdoctoral Researcher). Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow in Ramin Shiekhattar's Laboratory Christina Spaulding (Research Technologist) Megan Ruth Johnson (Research Technologist) Kenneth Kai-Zhi Wang (Master Student) |