All current CPH Bioscience PhD students, listed by year-group (year they started the programme), and alphabetically by first name within those groups.

Click the year to jump to the year-group:

2022

Student	Research Interests
Antar Drews Supervisor: Jan Zylicz, reNEW Home Country: Costa Rica Year: 2022	The fact that a complete organism can arise from a single cell is astonishing to me. During my PhD, I aim to use synthetic embryology approaches to improve our understanding about cell type specification and functionality during the first week of human development. By generating stem cell-derived blastocyst-like structures in vitro, I hope to uncover molecular details and mechanisms related to human blastocyst development, attachment and implantation.
Beatriz Teixeira Supervisor: Mariaceleste Aragona, reNEW Home Country: Portugal Year: 2022	I am very interested in tissue architecture and how different cellular interactions play a role in tissue organization and function. During my Ph.D. project, I would like to explore this topic by improving current tissue culture technologies through the generation of more sophisticated human models and the development of new tools and therapies that could be used to improve patient care.
Cecilia P. Reyes Supervisor: Josh Brickman, reNEW Home Country: Perú Year: 2022	I am interested in the future of regenerative medicine “stem cell therapies”. Nowadays, diabetes is considered a new pandemic affecting millions of people. In my Ph.D., I would like to center on improving the differentiation protocols of human beta cells from embryonic stem cells. How current knowledge of Notch oscillation can be used to improve beta cell production and cell-based therapies.
César Cunha Supervisor: Tuomas Kilpelainen, CBMR Home Country: Portugal Year: 2022	My main research interest revolves around Alzheimer´s Disease. Despite how devastating and prevalent the disease is, there is still no therapeutic avenue in sight for patients. Knowing that obesity and type 2-diabetes are the top modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer´s, my ambition is to use genomics to understand their biological correlation and identify new drug targets and drug repurposing avenues towards establishing preventive treatments as the path to tackle Alzheimer´s.
Diana Avramets Supervisor: Brice Emanuelli, CBMR Home Country: Ukraine Year: 2022	The key idea for me in performing research is getting a deeper understanding of the processes that affect our lives daily. So, the most fascinating field of study for this is the metabolism of human organisms. For my PhD project, I am going to investigate the physiology of adipose tissue and shed some light on the interplay between the various cell types that make this tissue’s functions so complex.
Farina Leonie Schlabs Supervisor: Atul Deshmukh, CBMR Home Country: Germany Year: 2022	My research interest is in investigating how exercise induces health beneficial adaptions in skeletal muscle. I would like to characterize the role of post-translational modifications in exercise adaptions by making use of the powerful approach of mass spectrometry based proteomics.
Felipe Mejia Otalvaro Supervisor: Ditte Welner, CFB Home Country: Colombia Year: 2022	Enzyme technology, in my opinion, is a critical player in the development of sustainable biotechnological processes. Therefore, I’m interested in the discovery and/or engineering of enzymes for their implementation in relevant industrial process using alternate enzymatic reaction media such as seawater and green solvents.
Foteini Aktypi Supervisor: Simon Rasmussen, CBMR Home Country: Greece Year: 2022	My interests revolve around exploring new ways to analyze large scale proteomics data more efficiently and meaningfully. I aim to provide solutions to the scientific community for the accurate interpretation of mass spectrometry based proteomics data which can be used to more precisely characterize disease states, find biomarkers and identify drug targets.
Giusi Favoino Supervisor: Pablo I. Nikel, CFB Home Country: Italy Year: 2022	My primary interest is to be part of a research aimed at preserving the planet and limiting its exploitation, which I consider to be the fundamental goal to achieve in the present time. Specifically, my project is focused on engineering environmental bacteria in order to produce molecules of interest through synthetic metabolisms that enable CO2 assimilation.
Jacopo Munaretto Supervisor: Melissa Little, reNEW Home Country: Italy Year: 2022	Organoid technologies are a versatile tool for research and clinical applications. My interest lies in the characterisation of kidney organoids, in particular in the intrinsic mechanisms that generate the variety of cell types observed in the current  protocols. I would like to analyse the factors involved combining advanced microscopy and omics profiling.
Louise Morlot Supervisor: Niels Mailand, CPR Home Country: France Year: 2022	I am interested in understanding mechanisms of cellular stress responses and exploring pathways involved in the maintenance of genome integrity. During my PhD I aim to develop targeted approaches combining cell biology and high resolution omics technologies to study DNA repair mechanisms and the consequences of damages such as DNA-protein crosslinks.
Marc Pielies Avellí Supervisor: Simon Rasmussen, CBMR Home Country: Spain Year: 2022	My primary research goal is to develop state-of-the-art machine learning models, aiming to solve complex problems in biology. During my PhD I will work on data integration for several medical conditions. I will mainly focus on the study of genetic variants and their functional impact on certain diseases.
Maxence Holtz Supervisor: Michael Krogh Jensen, CFB Home Country: France Year: 2022	My research interest lies in the combination of enzyme and metabolic engineering to build efficient microbial cell factories. I am particularly interested in harnessing evolution-based methods and high-throughput technologies to speed-up the construction and selection of the best-performing strains. Using yeast as a chassis, I am focusing on the sustainable production of high-value pharmaceuticals.
Nicole Rutbeek Supervisor: Nicholas Taylor, CPR Home Country: Canada Year: 2022	My research interests involve understanding host-pathogen relationships and in particular the interactions between bacteria and phage. Through the use of cryo-EM, as well as other structural and biochemical techniques, I aim to characterize mechanisms used by bacteria to protect against phage infection.
Ricardo Tenente Supervisor: Thomas Frimurer, CBMR Home Country: Portugal Year: 2022	Protein structures can provide useful insights into their biological function. I aim to understand the molecular mechanisms of action of metabolite sensing GPCRs upon interaction with natural ligands and novel designed drugs, via Molecular Dynamics simulations with AI-derived GPCR structures and further validated with wet-lab techniques.
Sidak Minocha Supervisor: Julien Duxin, CPR Home Country: India Year: 2022	I am intrigued by how cells replicate, regulate, and maintain their DNA. I am interested in studying how DNA protein crosslinks (DPCs) damage the DNA and how they are repaired. Cancer therapeutics heavily rely on chemicals that form DPCs and understanding their repair pathways would provide important insights into the disease and chemoresistance.
Stijn Kral Supervisor: Alex Toftgaard Nielsen, CFB Home Country: The Netherlands Year: 2022	Biotechnology for real sustainable solutions inspires me. In my research I work on the use of thermophilic bacteria for biobased chemical production.  With metabolic engineering, tool development, modelling, and fermentation we aim to construct strains that are not only interesting for academic research, but that can be applied in industry.

2022