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ANDREAS BOLAND
Principal Investigator
Andreas completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen in the group of Elisa Izaurralde where he discovered his passion for Structural Biology. He moved for his PostDoc to Cambridge and joined David Barford at the MRC-LMB. Here, he used cryoEM to investigate the structure & function of proteins involved in cell cycle regulation. He continues to work on important cell cycle regulatory proteins at the University of Geneva. Main techniques used to address biological questions are in vitro biochemistry, structural biology and cell biology.
Outside the lab Andreas likes all kind of sports, especially running.
JUN YU
Senior Scientist
Jun obtained his B.S. degree from Zheng Zhou University, China in 2013. He joined the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, to join the Master and Doctoral program. During his PhD in Song Xiang's lab his research focused on the structural analysis of protein phosphatase 1 and the Rad18 E3 ligase by X-ray crystallography. In May 2019, he moved to Geneva Switzerland and joined the lab as a Postdoc. Jun works on elucidating the molecular mechanism of chromosome segregation by separase using cryo-EM together with complementary biochemical and biophysical techniques. He likes playing badminton and table tennis during his free time.
XUEFENG ZHANG
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Xuefeng obtained his bachelor degree from the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University in Xi'an, China. For his master he moved from Central China to Shanghai to study and work at the Shanghai institute of Materia Medica (Chinese Academy of Sciences). During his PhD he worked on the structural and functional characterisation of the cholecystokinin receptors, under the supervision of Prof. Qiang Zhao. He will join the Boland group in September 2022 and continue to work on specific membrane protein targets, using cryoEM.
MARGHERITA BOTTO
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Margherita performed her bachelor's studies in Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome (2012-2015). Following this, she completed her Master studies in Biological and Soft Matter Physics at Leiden University (2015-2017). Afterwards she obtained her PhD in Structural Biology at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), in the lab of Meindert Lamers (2018-2022). She will join the lab as a Postdoc in November 2023 and will work on the structural basis of cell cycle regulation. Margherita is a mountain lover, and when she is not at work she loves to ski or hike in the beautiful Alps.
ANNA HÖFLER
PhD student
Anna studied Biology/Technical Biology at the University of Darmstadt (2013-2018). For her Master thesis she joined the lab of Marco Marcia at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble for a one-year internship. Here she performed structural analyses of chromatin remodelling complexes. In June 2019, Anna joined the lab as a PhD student working on the structural and biochemical characterisation of ubiquitin ligases. Outside the lab, Anna plays in a volleyball team and enjoys hiking, biking and snowshoeing in the mountains.
LINA POULAIN
PhD student
Lina obtained her bachelor’s in medical biology from the University of Québec in Trois-Rivieres in Canada (2012-2016) and did her bachelor thesis in molecular virology within the same institution. She obtained her master’s in immunology from the University Aix-Marseille in France (2017-2019) and conducted her thesis in molecular virology at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm in Sweden. She joined the lab in October 2019 working on the structural basis of cell cycle regulation. When not working, Lina likes to go swimming in the Rhône, hiking and skiing in the Alps and Jura mountains and meet her friends and her family in south of France. Lina is also a member of the PhD association “Phage” organizing events all year long.
SOPHIA SCHMIDT
PhD student
After her Bachelor at the University of Basel (2015-2019), Sophia performed an internship at Abera Bioscience (2019). Working with proteins raised her interest to follow up her Masters in Structural Biology at the Biozentrum, Basel (2019-2021), where she studied proteins using biophysical methods and cryoEM. Sophia then conducted an internship in Downstream Processes at Novartis (2021). Equipped with this knowledge she decided to pursue a PhD to understand the mechanism of biological processes at an atomic level using cryoEM. She joined the lab in March 2022. In her free time, Sophia enjoys outdoor sports such as ski tours, climbing, hiking and cycling with her friends.
LAB ALUMNI
PIERRE RAIA
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Pierre was substantially involved in our paper on the regulation of human separase and established several other projects successfully in the lab.
He moved in early 2022 to the Hothorn lab (UNIGE, down the hall) to expand his technical repertoire and is still an important contributor to some of the projects in the Boland lab.