group leader
Dirk Schübeler
I studied biology and obtained my PhD in Braunschweig, Germany, working with Jürgen Bode followed by a postdoc at the Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, USA with Mark Groudine. In 2003 I started my own lab at the FMI in Basel where we try to decode gene regulation in chromatin.
postdoctoral fellows
Lisa Baumgartner
After completing my studies in Zurich, I moved to Vienna for my PhD, where I studied the specific chromatin binding pattern of a heterochromatin protein in the context of small RNA mediated genome defense in Drosophila. Intrigued by how specificity can be achieved at chromatin, I returned to Switzerland to join the Schübeler lab and to investigate how transcription factors find their place in the genome. I enjoy warm summer days, travelling to sunny places, and all things sweet.
sevi durdu
I was born in Izmir and studied molecular biology and genetics at Bilkent University. During my internships in neuroscience, structural biology and bioinformatics, I realized that the research fields are unnecessarily separated. I then gained my PhD in developmental cell biology at EMBL/Heidelberg, wondering “how cell communication and multicellular architecture are connected”. Now, I am asking "how transcription factors induce specific programs of cell differentiation" in Schubeler lab/FMI.
Nikolas Eggers
Noa gil
I moved to Basel from Israel, where I completed my PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science, focusing on lncRNA biology. I am interested in how transcription factor binding and chromatin structure affect each other. In my free time I enjoy learning languages and building my own furniture.
Murat Iskar
I studied molecular biology and genetics at Bilkent University and University of California, Santa Cruz. I did my PhD in the computational biology unit at EMBL Heidelberg in the lab of Peer Bork and moved to DKFZ as a postdoctoral fellow to Peter Lichter's division. I am interested in the dynamic interplay between chromatin and transcription factor binding.
Ana Petracovici
phd students
Francesca Masoni
I was born and grew up in Sardinia (Italy); I also lived in Geneva (Switzerland), Prince Edward Island (Canada), and Pavia (Italy). I pursued in Pavia a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and a Master of Sciences in Molecular Biology and Genetics. I am fascinated by how epigenetic regulation governs gene expression plasticity and, hope to contribute in expanding our knowledge in this field. For this, I am now focusing my studies on some of the molecular mechanisms underlying specificity in genome regulation. In my free time I like to read any kind of books, drawing, watching movies and run. I also really enjoy travelling and learn new languages.
Fumiya Moribe
I was born and grew up in Tokyo and studied medicine in Kyoto in Japan. During my bachelor, I studied how epigenetic states in lymphomas affect drug sensitivity at Kyoto University and NIH in the U.S. After an internship in Tokyo where I studied fatty liver pathogenesis by organoids and scRNAseq, I joined the Schübeler lab as a PhD student. I am interested in how transcription factors interact with chromatin to specifically regulate transcription. I enjoy backpacking abroad, playing sports and going to saunas.
technical/research associates
lukas burger
I am a senior computational biologist in the lab. I studied physics at the Swiss Federal Insitute of Technology in Zürich and did a PhD in bioinformatics with Erik van Nimwegen at the Biozentrum, University of Basel. After my PhD, I moved to FMI, where I first worked for several years in the computational biology group of Michael Stadler before joining the Schübeler lab. I am interested in transcriptional regulation and epigenetics, combined with a general interest in computational/statistical methods for data analysis and modelling. In my spare time, I enjoy playing the piano, dancing and reading.
leslie hoerner
I’m French, from a small town close to Luxembourg and studied biotechnology at the University of Nancy and Lille. After an internship at Novartis in Basel, I was hired as scientific associate in their Oncology department. After 2 years, I switched to more academic research at the FMI. I currently live close by in France with my family where I enjoy following dance classes.
christiane wirbelauer
I grew up in Freiburg, Germany and got my degree in Landau. My first position was at the University of Freiburg in a plant-department. Afterwards I moved to the Max-Planck-Institute for Immunology in Freiburg to work on Malaria. After 4 years at a company developing immunological assays, I started at the FMI in 1995. For 8 years I worked in the Krek lab on cancer research. I joined Dirk’s lab in 2003 as a Lab Manager.
INTERNs
mARIA ELENI vATHI
Hi! I’m Marialena. I grew up in Athens, Greece and studied biology at the University of Crete. There I first heard the term epigenetics and realized that despite having sequenced the human genome, we still don’t fully comprehend how genome regulation occurs. Considering this as a fundamental step in any future biomedical endeavour, I sought to learn more about it by doing internships in Greece and Germany. In the Schübeler lab, I am currently trying to figure out how cofactors get recruited to chromatin.