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
Simone Faravelli
Julio Liu
Nikolas Eggers
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.
Ana Petracovici
phd students
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.
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. Two years later, 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.