Understanding cell and tissue polarity

I was born in Corfu, Greece on 06.18.1991. I started my research oriented path by obtaining my BSc degree in Biology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Apart from the theoretical knowledge I gained through the courses provided by my school, during my undergraduated dissertation I took advantage of opportunities to learn more applied skills. In September 2014, I was accepted to participate in the Master Program “Molecular basis of Human Disease” at the Medical School in University of Crete. During the first year of the Master, I specialized on the molecular pathways implicated in crucial human diseases such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and cancer. After the theoretical classes, I joined the scientific team of the Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory where I worked on my thesis focusing on the epigenetic regulation of intestinal stem cell homeostasis and tissue repair in Drosophila melanogaster. In September 2016, I started my PhD in the Department of Developmental Biology of Utrecht University under the supervision of Mike Boxem. My project elaborates the mechanisms that maintain cell polarity in established epithelia focusing on the basolateral polarity regulators and the junction components and the implication of loss of cell polarization in the malignant transformation of epithelial cells.

I am an American PhD student studying cell polarity in fungus at the Institute of Biology Valrose within the tripartite CNRS/INSERM/Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France. I received my Bachelors in Science from the State University of New York at Potsdam. Subsequently, I worked in the chemical industry as a laboratory technician in a water-based coatings research and development division at the Willamette Valley Company in Eugene, Oregon. With a strong desire to carry out biological research, I attended the University of Massachusetts Boston. I spent two years studying cell cycle regulation in a soil bacteria before receiving my Master’s of Science in Biology. Directly after completing this degree, I moved to Nice to begin my PhD in the PolarNet program. Apart from biological research, I like to spend my free time in the mountains hiking, camping, and skiing.

I studied Biotechnology at University of Leon (Spain) and completed my studies at VU Amsterdam (The Netherlands) as part of the ERASMUS program. As an undergrad, I performed an internship in the group of Dr. Mar Fernandez-Borja (Sanquin, The Netherlands), where I became fascinated by the beauty and challenges of cell biology research. Hereafter, I enrolled in the Master of Biomolecular Sciences at VU Amsterdam where I had the opportunity of performing two additional internships in the groups of Dr. Wilbert Zwart (NKI, The Netherlands) and Dr. Omer Yilmaz (MIT, USA). Captivated by the concept of asymmetric cell division and stem cell niche, I decided to join Dr. Trevor Dale lab. My project aims to determine whether the cancer-inducing loss of Axin protein in the liver is mediated by changes in cell polarity.

Eric van Leen is a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Yohanns Bellaïche at the Curie Institute in Paris. There he investigates the role of spindle orientation during morphogenesis in the pupal notum. Before starting his PhD, Eric obtained a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at Utrecht University where he focused on Molecular Life Sciences. To complete the necessary training for his Master’s degree, he worked in multiple labs. His first research experience was in microtubule polarity in C. elegans neurons in the labs of Prof. Dr. Casper Hoogenraad and Prof. Dr. Sander van den Heuvel at Utrecht University. Then he performed his second internship in the group of Prof. Dr. Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of cell membrane repair after plasma membrane disruption. Lastly, he was a summer student in the lab of Dr. Andrew Carter at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where he looked at the interaction between cargo adapters and dynein-dynactin.

Biography Janine Cravo is a Portuguese PhD student in the van den Heuvel at the Utrecht University. She started her undergraduate studies in 2007 by enrolling in the Biomedical Sciences bachelor degree at University of Algarve. Later in 2010, she joined the Master’s in Biomedical Science in the same university. Janine joined the Isabel Palmeirim’s lab at the Center for Biomedical Research to develop her Master’s thesis which aimed to characterize bioinformatically and in vitro an avian cyclic expressed protein involved in the segmentation clock. As Janine had a great interest for cancer biology, Janine changed fields and in November 2013 started working as a research fellow on the project “Mutant E-Cadherin and Novel Interactors in Cancer”, under the supervision of Prof. Raquel Seruca and Dr. Joana Figueiredo, at Ipatimup. It was during this time that Janine integrated and understood how polarity and cell organization have such an impact on a great vast of cellular processes. Therefore, Janine decided to apply to the position available at van den Heuvel Lab at Utrecht University funded by the Marie Curie ITN, PolarNet, where she is currently doing her PhD since April 2016.

I am Nuria Abajo Lima and I am from Barcelona (Spain). I studied Chemical Engineering at the IQS School of Engineering (Ramon Llull University, Barcelona) and a Master in Bioengineering at the same university. I am doing the PhD in Trevor Dale’s lab at Cardiff University and my project is based on a collaboration with Cellesce focusing on the development of a novel biophysical technique for the fractionation of organoid subtypes.

Sara Pompe was born on the 4th of July in 1986 in Neubrandenburg, former East Germany. After her achievement of the general qualification of the university entrance level (A-levels) in June 2006, she went to the USA (CT) to work as an Au-Pair for one year. Thereby, she got to know the American way of life as well as made experience in life itself. In September 2007 she came back to Germany to start her academic studies in biology (Bachelor) at the Georg-August University of Goettingen, which is part of the excellence initiative and has an outstanding scientific environment. During that time she developed a high interest in Neurobiology. For her Bachelor thesis she characterized the neuroanatomy of ring neurons in the ellipsoid body, a part of the central complex in the brain of Drosophila melanogaster. She continued at the same University with her Master studies specializing on developmental, neural, and behavioral biology. During her Master thesis she investigated the erythropoietin-mediated neuroprotective effect on insect neurons. After her studies Sara worked for 2 years as a research assistant at the Targos Molecular Pathology GmbH – Clinical Biomarker Services in Kassel, Germany. In the department of Histopathology Assay Development, she was part of a team responsible for the analytical establishment and validation of in situ immunohistochemistry assays detecting biomarkers involved in tumorigenesis. This was done according to the College of American Pathologists and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments guidelines for the application of the assays as companion diagnostics for therapeutics in clinical trials. In this context Sara developed her interest in sophisticated mechanisms of therapeutics and became very curious about research in drug development. Additionally, she was seeking for further career and personal progress. Hence, she started in July 2016 with her PhD in the field of molecular oncology in the research group of Paul MP van Bergen en Henegouwen (PhD), who is part of the Cell Biology division at the Utrecht University, Netherlands.

I’m a developmental biologist born in China, and grew up in Toronto. I received my HBSc. and MSc. from the University of Toronto. I am a huge fan of genetic tricks, prokaryotes, protists, evo-devo, disordered proteins, beautiful cellular structures, and fancy microscopes. The robustness of pattern formation and size control in development is the greatest mystery to me! More specifically, I’m most interested in how diverse cellular architectures are built with self-organizing subunits.

I am Indian by nationality and come from a city named Chennai from southern India. Currently, I am a PhD student working in Sandrine Etienne – Manneville’s lab in Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. Before beginning my PhD project, I was pursuing my Master’s in Biotechnology and Biomedical engineering from NIT Rourkela, India. Prior to which, I did my Bachelor’s in Biotechnology from SRM University Chennai, India again. It has been a very intriguing experience to have moved from India to France, especially Paris both scientifically and personally.

York-Christoph Ammon is a PhD student in the lab of Prof. Anna Akhmanova. He studied molecular biomedicine in Bonn, Germany, and was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in summer 2012. During his bachelor thesis, he worked in the lab of Prof. Christa E. Mueller. The scope of his bachelor thesis were structure-activity-relationship studies of novel adenosine A2A receptor antagonists. Afterwards, he studied Drug Research in Bonn. For his master thesis he worked again under the supervision of Prof. Christa E. Mueller. The topic of his master thesis was the implementation of proximity ligation assays to detect heterodimeric receptor complexes consisting of adenosine A2A and adenosine A2B receptors. In summer 2015, he was awarded a Master of Science degree. After a three-month internship at Tuebingen University in the lab of Prof. Achim Hoerauf, he started his PhD in the lab of Prof. Anna Akhmanova in January 2016.

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Shailaja is currently a PhD student in Dr. Etienne-Manneville’s lab at the Institut Pasteur, Paris and is affiliated with the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI) and the Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France. She received her B.Sc. in Biotechnology, Chemistry and Zoology from Christ University, Bangalore, India in 2014. During the summer of 2014, she worked as a research fellow at HealthCare Global Cancer Hospitals for 3 months. She then obtained her Master’s degree in Biomedical and Molecular Sciences Research at King’s College London in 2015. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a Research Assistant at King’s College London from Nov 2015 to April 2016. Her research interests include cytoskeletal organization and dynamics, cell migration and mechanotransduction.