Team

Prof. Michele De Palma Prof. Michele De Palma
Head of the Lab
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Michele (Miki) De Palma is tenured associate professor of cancer biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He is executive director and chair of the scientific committee of the AGORA Cancer Research Center (Lausanne), a multi-institutional research center focused on translational and clinical oncology.

Miki graduated in Biology (1999) at the University of Torino, Italy, with a master thesis on the anti-proliferative functions of type I interferons. In 2004 he obtained a PhD degree in cell biotechnologies from the University of Torino Medical School, where he studied the contribution of bone marrow-derived cells to tumor angiogenesis. He performed post-doctoral training at the Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (TIGET) in Milan under the direction of gene therapy pioneer, Dr. Luigi Naldini, to develop gene transfer strategies for engineering and reprogramming monocytes into anti-tumoral immune cells. This work has led to a first-in-kind clinical trial of interferon gene-modified monocytes in patients with brain cancer (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03866109).

Miki joined the School of Life Sciences of EPFL in 2012, where he teaches cancer biology. Current research in the De Palma’s lab focuses on mechanisms of tumor resistance to immunotherapies mediated by myeloid cells and the angiogenic vasculature, as well as on the development of engineered dendritic cell therapies.

Miki serves on the editorial advisory boards of Science Translational Medicine (AAAS), Cell Reports (Cell press), Cancer Immunology Research (AACR), and BBA – Reviews on Cancer. He received two European Research Council (ERC) programme grants (2009 and 2016), and was awarded the Robert Wenner Prize for Cancer Research in 2017 (from the Swiss Cancer League).

In his spare time, Miki studies the taxonomy of the Cetoniinae (Coleoptera). He has described several new taxa and revised a number of genera in this group.

Awards (selected)

  • 2001 and 2003: Excellence in Research Award, American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT)
  • 2004-06: Post-doctoral fellowship, Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC)
  • 2007: Young Investigator Award, European Society of Gene Therapy (ESGT)
  • 2009: European Research Council (ERC) Starting grant
  • 2012: Anna Fuller Prize
  • 2013: Leenaards Prize
  • 2013: AAAS Wachtel Cancer Research Award (Honorable Mention)
  • 2016: European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant
  • 2017: Robert Wenner Prize for Cancer Research
  • 2023: Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 2023

Soledad Andany Soledad Andany
Admin assistant
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Soledad Andany is in charge of lab administration. Swiss with Spanish origin, Soledad was born and educated in Geneva and has recently returned to Switzerland after 15 years in the South of France. She has worked in several international companies, mainly in accounting. She is fluent in French, English and Spanish.


Dr Nahal Mansouri Dr Nahal Mansouri
Visiting Scientist
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Nahal Mansouri graduated in Medicine in 2010 from Shahid Beheshti Medical University in Iran. She completed specialty training in internal medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and subspecialty training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School in Boston, U.S.A. Between medical training and residency, she researched immunologic pathways involved in TB and genetic defects that lead to disseminated mycobacterial and viral infections in Casanova’s lab, at The Rockefeller University in New York. During her fellowship she joined the lab of Prof. Kourembanas at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she studied mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Striving for a career as a physician-scientist, she started working as a pulmonologist (Chef de clinique) at the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) and as a scientist in De Palma’s Lab in 2018. She is now studying the effects of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles on the lung microenvironment.


Dr Yang Liu
Post-doc

Yang Liu graduated from Southern Medical University (Guangzhou, China) with a bachelor degree in Clinical Pharmacy in 2016. Then she directly started doctoral training in Prof. Guangmei Yan’s lab and obtained M.D. in pharmacology from Sun Yat-sen Univerisity (Guangzhou, China) in 2021. During her doctoral training, she was mainly focusing on revealing the precise mechanism underlying oncolytic virus awakens systemic antitumor immune responses and designing appropriate combination strategies to improve the antitumor efficacy of oncolytic virotherapy. In 2023, she joined De Palma’s lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study the antigen-presentation function of tumor-associated vascular endothelial cells and to develop engineered dendritic cells for the immunotherapy of glioma.



Dr Nadine Zangger Dr Nadine Fournier
Bioinformatics specialist

Nadine Fournier (Zangger) graduated in 2007 from the University of Lausanne with a master’s degree in Biology. She continued her studies with a master’s degree in Bioinformatics from the University of Geneva in 2000. In 2007, she obtained a PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Geneva for her work on protein clustering and functional domain analysis in the laboratory of Prof. Ron Appel. Since 2007, Nadine is working as Data Analyst at the Biostatistics Core Facility with Dr. Delorenzi (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics). She is providing bioinformatics support for the analysis of all types of high throughput data and is involved in several research projects related to cancer biology, tumor microenvironment, response to treatment, and clinical trials.


Céline Wyser Rmili Céline Wyser Rmili
Lab manager
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Céline Wyser Rmili performed her training as a laboratory technician in the Centre for Integrative Genomics at the University of Lausanne. During this period she worked in three different laboratories and learned several techniques, spanning from mouse studies, plant and molecular biology. In 2009 she received her CFC and worked in the laboratory of Christian Hardtke, at the Department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Lausanne. She worked mainly on Arabidopsis thaliana and assisted several post-doc’s with their projects. She joined the De Palma’s lab at the ISREC Institute at EPFL School of Life Sciences in 2013 with the role of lab manager.


Alan Guichard
Biosafety level 2 lab manager
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Alan graduated from the University of Versailles in 2007 with a bachelor degree in Biotechnologies. He then worked in the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Orléans, in the laboratory of the Professor Claudine Kieda where he was mainly involved in the establishment of a cell-mediated gene therapy to target tumor angiogenesis. In 2013, he joined the laboratory of the Dr. Philippe Chavrier in Institut Curie, Paris, taking part in the study of the transition of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) to invasive breast carcinoma. He then moved to Lausanne to join the unit of the Professor George Coukos in 2016, helping setting up a humanized mice platform to test novel immune therapies until he joined the De Palma’s lab in 2017.


Bruno Torchia Bruno Torchia
Technician
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Bruno Torchia performed his training as a laboratory technician in the Medical University Center of Geneva. During this period, he worked in the laboratories of Professor Paolo Meda and Dr. Francesco Negro on diabetes and Hepatitis C research projects. In 2013 he received his CFC diploma and started to work in the laboratory of Professor Douglas Hanahan, where he studied immunotherapy in cervical cancer models. He joined the De Palma’s lab in 2018.



Luqing Li
PhD student
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Luqing Li obtained his Bachelor degree in Biochemistry at University of Tübingen in 2018 and a Master degree in Biology at Free University of Berlin. From 2019 to 2021, he conducted his internship and master thesis at Prof. Mathias Heikenwälder’s lab located in DKFZ Heidelberg, where he studied metabolic stress and immune responses in context of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and liver cancer. In 2021, he joined De Palma’s lab at ISREC Institute, EPFL School of Life Sciences as a doctoral researcher to develop engineered dendritic cells for the immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma.


Ali Ghasemi Ali Ghasemi
PhD student
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Ali obtained his bachelor and master degree from the Department of Biotechnology, College of Science, University of Tehran. During his master, he worked on the recombinant production, purification, and anti-cancer properties of a therapeutic enzyme. After his master, he did an internship at Nivad Pharmed (Tehran-Iran), where he contributed to the production of a vaccine against oncogenic serotypes of Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Ali joined the De Palma’s lab in 2018 to develop genetically-engineered dendritic cells for melanoma and lung cancer therapy.


Yahya Mohammadzadeh Yahya Mohammadzadeh
PhD student
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Yahya Mohammadzadeh obtained his bachelor in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2015 from the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM) in Iran. During his undergraduate study, he joined the Pasteur Institute of Tehran as a full-time research associate, where they developed a DNA delivery platform based on Virosome technology. He then moved to the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, to pursue his master study. During the course of his master, he studied the process of mitophagy (autophagy of damaged mitochondria). After graduating from UBC in 2018, he joined the De Palma’s lab at EPFL to develop the EVIR-DC platform.



Simge Yücel Simge Yücel
PhD student
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Simge graduated from the Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey with a Molecular Biology and Genetics bachelor degree. She performed her master studies at Radboud University in the Netherlands. During her masters, she worked on understanding the effects of radiotherapy on tumor-associated macrophages at Radboud University Medical Center. For her master thesis, Simge joined Robert A. Weinberg’s laboratory at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research-MIT in the USA, where she studied clonal heterogeneity and differential responses to combination immunotherapy in high grade serous ovarian cancer. In 2020, Simge received ISREC Foundation grant and started her PhD studies under the co-supervision of Drs. Hanahan and De Palma. In De Palma lab, she is currently working on understanding chemotherapy-induced lung metastasis.



FORMER LAB MEMBERS


Prof. Stacey Finley
Visiting Professor in 2022
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Dr. Stacey D. Finley trained in the United States, receiving her bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from Florida A & M University and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University. She completed postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Finley joined the faculty at the University of Southern California (USC) in 2013, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and holder of the Nichole A. and Thuan Q. Pham Professorship. Dr. Finley leads the Computational Systems Biology Laboratory and she is also the Founder and Director of the Center for Computational Modeling of Cancer at USC. At EPFL, Dr. Finley is working with the De Palma group to understand single cell transcriptomics analysis and incorporate these data into the computational models her group builds.


Prof. Luisa Iruela-Arispe Prof. Luisa Iruela-Arispe
Visiting professor in 2012-2013
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Luisa Iruela-Arispe received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and followed post-doctoral training at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA where she studied the contribution of extracellular matrix to the process of angiogenesis. From 1994-1998 she was Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and subsequently joined UCLA where she has been since 1998. Currently she is Distinguished Professor and Vice-Chair of the Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology Department at UCLA. She is also the Interim Director of the Molecular Biology Institute and the Director of the Cancer Stem Cell Biology program at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the same institution. At EPFL, Dr. Iruela-Arispe performed a 1-year sabbatical period working with the group of Miki De Palma to explore the contribution of macrophages to vessel growth in the context of tumors.


Amaia Martinez Usatorre Dr Amaia Martinez-Usatorre
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Amaia Martinez Usatorre obtained a degree in Biotechnology in 2012 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a Master’s degree in Medical Biology in 2014 from the University of Lausanne. In 2017, she obtained a PhD in Life Sciences from the University of Lausanne for her studies in the laboratory of Prof. Pedro Romero focusing on T-cell receptor affinity and microRNA-155 in CD8 T-cell anti-tumor responses. In 2019, Amaia joined the De Palma’s lab as a post-doctoral fellow to study lung cancer immunotherapy.



Dr Gael Boivin Dr Gael Boivin
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Gael graduated in Medicine in 2014 from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. From 2014 to 2019, he conducted his MD-PhD thesis under Pr Vozenin’s and Bourhis’ supervision (Unil-CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland) and studied immunological changes after radiation-therapy in lung cancer. Concomitantly, he obtained in 2018 financial analysis and business strategy certifications from HEC-Paris, France; and started medical residency in the department of radiation-oncology in 2018 (CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland). In 2019, he moved to Pr Meylan’s laboratory (ISREC-EPFL, Lausanne Switzerland) where he studied the effects of intra-cellular neutrophil-targeting antibodies. He joined De Palma’s lab in 2020 to study the pleiotropic and/or synergistic effects of anti-PD-1 and anti-angiogenic strategies in lung cancer.


Dr Florent Duval Dr Florent Duval
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Florent graduated as a biological engineer from the Université de Technologie de Compi&eagrave;gne (France) in 2010. During his engineering studies, he performed an internship at Merck Serono, Geneva, for developing screening assays in multiple sclerosis. He then moved to Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico) to pursue doctoral studies. His work focused on investigating a new biomarker for cholestatic liver diseases in a bile duct ligation model. In 2017 he joined the De Palma’s Lab where he studied the properties of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles and their exploitation for dendritic cell vaccines.


Sina Nassiri Dr Sina Nassiri
Post-doc Bioinformatician
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Sina Nassiri is a member of the Bioinformatics Core Facility (BCF) at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB), and provides biostatistics and bioinformatics support to the De Palma group. Sina obtained his bachelors in engineering from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran-Iran), and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University (Philadelphia, USA). His areas of expertise include functional data analysis, multivariate statistics, and immuno-genomics.

Sina recently joined Roche in Basel.


Dr Chiara Cianciaruso Dr Chiara Cianciaruso
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Chiara Cianciaruso graduated in 2012 in Medical Biotechnology from San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy. During her master thesis and a subsequent period as a research fellow, she performed a study on the specificity of iron oxide particles used to track transplanted neural stem cells by magnetic resonance imaging. She then moved to EPFL to work on type 1 diabetes and mechanisms of autoimmunity in the laboratory of Dr. Baekkeskov, and obtained her PhD in 2016. She joined the De Palma’s lab in 2017, where she studied tumor-derived extracellular vesicles.

Chiara has recently joined a biotech in Basel, Switzerland.


Dr Ioanna Keklikoglou Dr Ioanna Keklikoglou
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Ioanna Keklikoglou graduated in Biology (2008) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, where she characterized the role of certain aminoacids in TRAF5 and TRAF6 molecules during NF-kappaB signaling activation. In 2012, she received her PhD Degree in Molecular Biology from the Ruperto-Carola University of Heidelberg, Germany. During her PhD studies, which were performed at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), she developed a screening strategy to identify miRNAs that regulate NF-kappaB signaling in cancer cells. She joined the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences in 2013 to study microenvironment-mediated tumor resistance to anti-cancer therapies in breast and lung cancer.

She is Lecturer (assistant professor) at Queen Mary University of London (UK).


Dr Mario Leonardo Squadrito Dr Mario Leonardo Squadrito
Senior post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Mario Leonardo Squadrito graduated in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (2008) at the University of L’Aquila, where he designed and characterized the activity of a recombinant EGF-Saporin fusion protein. In 2012, he obtained a PhD degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the San Raffaele University (Milan) and the Open University (UK); in the course of his studies, he identified and characterized the function of miR-511-3p, a microRNA highly expressed in tumor-associated macrophages. He joined the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences, in 2012. He focused his interests on the biogenesis of miRNAs and their roles in tumor-associated macrophages and inter-cellular communication. Moreover, Mario contributed to developing new strategies based on genetic cell engineering for cancer immunotherapy.

He is currently Group Leader at TIGET, San Raffaele Institute (Milan, Italy).


Dr Martina Schmittnägel Dr Martina Schmittnägel
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Martina Schmittnägel received her Master degree in cell and molecular biology from the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2010. She conducted her Master thesis in the department of Molecular Immunology focusing on the functional characterization of a novel protein expressed in B cells. For her PhD thesis, she joined Roche Innovation Center (Munich) to work on T cell-recruiting, immunotherapeutic tumor-targeting antibodies, and obtained her PhD in 2015 from the FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. She joined the ISREC Institute at the EPFL School of Life Sciences in 2015 to develop novel immunotherapeutic strategies based on co-targeting tumor angiogenesis.

She is currently working as Scientist at Roche (Penzberg, Germany).


Dr Damya Laoui Dr Damya Laoui
Visiting post-doc in 2015-2016
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Damya Laoui graduated in Bio-Engineering Sciences (2008) at the Free University of Brussels, where she explored the molecular and functional phenotype of tumor-associated macrophage subpopulations in breast cancer. In 2014, she obtained a PhD degree in the lab of Myeloid Cell Immunology (VIB-VUB, Brussels) under the supervision of Patrick the Baetselier and Jo Van Ginderachter, where she analyzed the role of CSFR1 and hypoxia signaling in regulating the phenotype of tumor-associated macrophage subsets. In order to continue this line of work, she obtained a post-doctoral grant from the Flemish League Against Cancer to study the role of inflammasomes in tumor-associated macrophages and dendritic cells in the groups of Jo Van Ginderachter (VIB-VUB, Brussels) and Mohamed Lamkanfi (VIB-UGent, Ghent). She visited the De Palma lab in 2016 and contributed to work on tumor macrophages.

She is now assistant professor at VIB-VUB (Leuven, Belgium).


Dr Nicolo Rigamonti Dr Nicolo Rigamonti
Post-doc
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Nicolo Rigamonti received his Master degree in Molecular Biotechnology (2007) from the Milano-Bicocca University. He performed his master thesis at the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm), developing an affibody-based strategy to treat mouse mammary tumors. In 2011, he obtained a PhD degree in Molecular Medicine from the San Raffaele University. During his PhD studies, partly performed at the Harvard Medical School (Boston), he studied the interplay between the tumor and the immune system, providing insight into the mechanisms underlying the induction of tumor immune tolerance. He joined the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences, in 2012 to study the interplay between angiogenesis and adaptive immunity in mouse models of cancer, and completed his post-doctoral training in 2015.

Nicolo is currently Project Scientist at Molecular Partners (Zurich, Switzerland).


Ian Marten Ian Marten
PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Ian grew up in the Boston area. While studying chemical engineering at Berkeley, he gained experience in the fields of cancer at the Amon Lab (MIT) and immunology at the Raulet lab (Berkeley). He also interned at two pharmaceutical companies – Vertex and Plexxikon – during the summers. Post bachelor, Ian worked on oncolytic viruses and organoids in the Coukos Lab (CHUV). Ian is now investigating dendritic cells and engineering tumor organoids jointly in the De Palma and Lütolf labs. Because a grad school workweek isn’t stressful enough for him, Ian can be found on the weekends climbing and skiing off cliffs in the Alps.


Tim Beltraminelli Tim Beltraminelli
PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Tim graduated in 2012 in Biology at the University of Lausanne. He was then selected for the “Programme Passerelle” of the University of Lausanne, and obtained the Master of Medicine and the Swiss Federal Diploma of Human Medicine in 2016. For his master thesis, Tim joined the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neurotherapies (Prof. Deglon) to develop a gene therapy strategy for Huntington’s disease. During his medical studies he also worked at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Bellinzona, where he performed an internship in protein folding and another in immunology (Prof. Lanzavecchia). In 2016, Tim received a MD-PhD FNS grant for his thesis studies, and joined Prof. De Palma’s lab in June 2017, where he worked on macrophage-vascular communication in cancer.

Tim is now performing a medical residency in ophthalmology in Ticino.


Ece Kadioglu Ece Kadioglu
PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Ece was graduated in 2011 as a double major student from the Department of Chemical Engineering & Department of Chemistry in Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her Bachelor project covered the investigation of the transcriptional responses of MIG1, MIG2, HAP4 and GSM1 genes in S.cerevisiae to transient perturbations under carbon and nitrogen limited conditions. She joined the De Palma’s lab to perform her Master project and pursue a doctorate. She studied the interactions between tumor blood vessels and the immune system. In particular, she focused her doctoral studies on anti-angiogenic immunotherapies in lung cancer models. Ece graduated in 2019.

She is currently Product manager at Lunaphore (Lausanne, Switzerland).


Dr. Daniela Biziato Dr. Daniela Biziato
PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Daniela Biziato graduated in Medical Biotechnology and Molecular Oncology (2006) at the University of Milan, where she studied the effects of hyperthermia on tumor cell proliferation and apoptosis. From 2007 to 2009, she worked as a research fellow at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, where she studied the involvement of TIE2-expressing macrophages (TEMs) in developmental and tumor angiogenesis. In 2010, she entered a PhD program in Molecular Medicine at the San Raffaele University in Milan. She joined the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences, in 2012 to complete her doctoral studies. After her PhD in De Palma’s lab, Daniela performed post-doctoral training at King’s College, London, UK.

She worked as Process Development Scientist at Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (London, UK), and currently at CHUV (Lausanne, Switzerland).


Caroline Baer Caroline Baer
PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Caroline Baer graduated at EPFL in 2011 as an engineer in Life Sciences and Technology. She did her master project at the University of Oxford, working on the role of the family of Apoptosis Stimulating Protein of p53 (ASPP) in cancer. In the De Palma’s lab she analyzed microRNAs expressed by tumor-associated macrophages, with the goal to understand their tumor-promoting and antagonizing functions. She identified DICER and Let-7 as important regulators of macrophage activation in tumors (Baer et al., Nat Cell Biol).

After completing her doctoral program, Caroline joined Lunaphore (Lausanne, Switzerland) as a research scientist.


Thea Berg Thea Berg
Technician
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Thea obtained a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science in 2018 from the University of Manchester, and a master’s degree in Medical Biology in 2020 from the University of Lausanne. During her master she worked on a project involving the role of eosinophils in gut development in Pr. Tatiana Petrova’s lab. Thea then joined the De Palma’s lab as technician working on the EVIR projects.


Célia Daugeron Célia Daugeron
Technician
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Celia studied Integrative Biology and Physiology at UPMC (Université Pierre et Marie Curie) in Paris. She joined the De Palma’s lab in 2017 for a brief internship.


Danielle Thompson Danielle Thompson
Technician
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Danielle Thompson graduated from the University of Lausanne (Unil) with a master’s in Molecular Life Sciences in 2015. She specialized in microbiology by performing a semester project on bacteriophages at UNIL and her master project on HIV-1 at the University Hospital Center of Lausanne (CHUV). The goal of her master project was to carry out a functional screen on HIV-1 restriction factors previously selected from a bioinformatic screen. Danielle worked as a technician in the laboratroy of Prof. De Palma in 2015-2016, before relocating to the US.


Claudio Maderna Claudio Maderna
Biosafety Level 2 lab manager
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Claudio Maderna graduated in Biomedical Laboratory Techniques (2004) at the University of Milan. He was research assistant at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute from 2005 to 2011 and joined the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences, in 2012. He is specialized in molecular biology techniques and supervised lentiviral vector construction and production in our Biosafety Level 2 Lab. He left the De Palma’s lab in November 2014 to retun to his hometown.

Claudio is currently employed as Senior Technician in Dr. Dejana’s group at IFOM (Milan, Italy).



Katharina Jonas Katharina Jonas
Visiting PhD student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Katharina obtained her Master´s degree in Molecular Biotechnology at the University for Applied Sciences Vienna (FH Campus Wien, Austria) in 2018. As part of her Master Thesis she worked at the Max Perutz Labs Vienna to study the functions of a cancer-related transcription factor. After graduating, Katharina worked at the Medical University of Vienna for one year, where she studied mechanisms of activation of a receptor tyrosine kinase. In October 2019 she began her PhD at the Medical University of Graz (Austria), in the lab of Dr. Martin Pichler. Her thesis is focused on elucidating the role of non-coding RNAs in triple negative breast cancer. In 2022 Katharina joined the De Palma lab as a visiting doctoral student to broaden her knowledge and to work on engineered dendritic cell vaccines.


Andreas Hurtado Andreas Hurtado
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Andreas Hurtado obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Life Science Engineering at the EPFL. During his bachelor’s thesis performed in the lab of Prof. Tang, he studied the role of recombinant CCL21 chemokine in T-cell tumor infiltration. He then pursued his master’s studies in Life Science Engineering at the EPFL during which he performed an internship at Addex Therapeutics to develop BRET-based technologies for neurological disorders screening assays. He joined the De Palma’s lab to perform a master’s thesis on cancer vaccines using dendritic cells expressing EVIR receptors.




Gabriele Casagrande Gabriele Casagrande
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Gabriele Casagrande graduated for his bachelors in chemistry at the university in Rome La Sapienza in 2020. He joined EPFL for the masters program in molecular and biological chemistry in September 2020 and is going to graduate in July 2022. He did a 6 months internship in aye yimon lab at EPFL on protein purification. He did a 6 months internship in rothlisberger lab at EPFL in computational biochemistry. He joined De Palma lab in September 2021 working on the DC-EVIR platform.


Mehdi Hicham Mehdi Hicham
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Mehdi Hicham received his Bachelor degree in Life Science at EPFL in 2019. He joined the De Palma’s lab in 2021 where he completed his master thesis under the supervision of Ali Ghasemi. During his master thesis, he helped on the development of a tumor-agnostic dendritic cell vaccine.


Caleb Perez Caleb Perez
Intern – Fullbright Scholar
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Caleb completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Washington, graduating in 2018 with a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering. During this time, he received training in cancer immunotherapy in a variety of settings, including his senior thesis in immunomodulatory biomaterials for CAR-T cell activation, an internship at Juno Therapeutics studying non-viral gene delivery to T cells, and an internship in the De Palma’s lab at EPFL working on cancer vaccines. He returned to the De Palma’s lab as a 2018-19 Fulbright Scholar to continue his previous work toward engineering dendritic cells for cancer immunotherapy.

After completing his fellowship, Caleb moved back to the US in late 2019.


Cyril Pulver Cyril Pulver
Master Student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Cyril obtained a bachelor in Life Sciences and Technologies at EPFL (2016) and is pursuing his cursus there with a master in Life Sciences and Technologies. Cyril took part to the iGEM competition as an EPFL team member (2015) and joined research teams both inside and outside academia for internships. Cyril joined the De Palma’s lab in 2018, where he is completing his master thesis project under the co-supervision of Dr. Sina Nassiri. Using bioinformatics approaches, he studied the role of macrophages in models of resistance to kinase inhibitors.


Amadeo Giussani Amadeo Giussani
Intern
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Amedeo completed his undergraduate studies at EPFL, in the school of Life Science and Technology. After completing an academic exchange at Polytechnique de Montréal he joined the De Palma lab in September 2018 to assist the research groups, focusing on tumor-derived extracellular vesicles.


Elad Drori Elad Drori
Intern
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Elad Drori joined the De Palma lab in 2017 after completing post-baccalaureate studies at Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He collaborated with several post-docs and graduate students in the lab.


Océane de Sousa Océane de Sousa
Trainee
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Océane joined the De Palma’s lab in the summer 2019 to perform her training as a laboratory technician.


Dylan Van Tuan Magnin Dylan Van Tuan Magnin
Trainee laboratory assistant
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Dylan studied 4 years in Yverdon-les-Bains gymnasium with Biology and Chimie as special subjects. He joined the De Palma’s lab in the summer 2016 to perform his training as a laboratory technician.


Axel Bellotti Axel Bellotti
Trainee laboratory assistant
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Axel joined the De Palma’s lab in the summer 2014 to perform his training as a laboratory technician.


Sarah Hansen Sarah Hansen
Intern – Fullbright Scholar
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Sarah Hansen completed a Bacheler of Science in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia (2015). During her undergraduate studies, she researched viral-based cardiac gene delivery for post-myocardial infarction therapies. During an internship at Johns Hopkins University, she studied polymeric-based gene delivery for targeted glioblastoma treatment. She joined the De Palma’s lab as a Fulbright Scholar for 2015-2016 to work on a project focusing on dendritic cell vaccines.

She moved back to the US in 2017.


Maria Karagianni Maria Karagianni
Master Student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Maria graduated from her bachelor studies in Biology in 2014 from the University of Patras, Greece. During her bachelor thesis, she performed studies on the activation of NF-KB in lung cancer. As a master student in the Biomedical Sciences in KU Leuven, Belgium, she also worked during her internships on Virology and Chemotherapy, Stem Cells and Epigenetics and Immunotherapy in Gliomas. She joined Dr. De Palma’s lab to perform her master thesis on the role of tumor-associated macrophages in secondary resistance to targeted therapies.

She currently works at Roche (Zurich, Switzerland).


Jean-Baptiste Pignier Jean-Baptiste Pignier
Master Student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Jean-Baptiste Pignier graduated with a BSc in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Rennes 1, France. He performed his BSc internship at the Institute of Genetics and Development of Rennes where he studied the isoforms of pVHL and their molecular partners in kidney cancer. In his first year of Master in Cell and Molecular Life Sciences, he worked on the hormonal escape of estrogen-responsive breast cancer cells by a functional and conformational study of the estrogen receptor alpha at the IRSET institute. In January 2016 Jean-Baptiste joined the ISREC institute at the EPFL School of Life Sciences to perform his Master thesis. In the De Palma’s lab, he investigated combinations of antiangiogenic and immunotherapeutic antibodies in mouse models of cancer.

He is currently performing a doctoral program at the University of Geneva.


Daniela Pais Ferreira Daniela Pais Ferreira
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Daniela Pais Ferreira received her Bachelor degree in Biology in 2012 from the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and was an intern at the Molecular Pathology Laboratory of the IPO (Portuguese Oncology Institute) of Coimbra, where she performed genetic studies on the BRCA1/BRCA2 genes. While a master student in Molecular Biomedicine, University of Aveiro (Portugal), Daniela joined the De Palma’s Lab to perform a master thesis thesis on the interplay between angiogenesis and adaptive immunity in mouse models of cancer.

She is currently performing a doctoral program in the University of Lausanne.


Lucie Giesbrecht Lucie Giesbrecht
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Lucie Giesbrecht received her Bachelor degree in Life Sciences at EPFL in 2013. While a master student in Molecular medicine at EPFL, Lucie joined the De Palma’s lab to work at her master thesis on genetically-modified monocytes for cancer immunotherapy.


Luisa Spisak Luisa Spisak
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Luisa is Master student at EPFL, Life Sciences. Originally from Zurich, she moved to Lausanne to study at EPFL. She joined the De Palma’s lab in September 2014 for an internship to the study tumor resistance to anti-angiogenetic therapy in RIP1-Tag2 mice.


Fabien Jammes Fabien Jammes
Master student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Fabien Jammes joined the De Palma’s lab in 2014 as a master student in the Life Sciences at EPFL. He studied the regulation of tumor macrophages by microRNAs.


Ka Ho Nicholas Cheung Ka Ho Nicholas Cheung
Bachelor student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Ka Ho Nicholas Cheung is currently working towards his bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He joined Dr. De Palma’s lab at the ISREC Institute in the EPFL School of Life Sciences as part of the 2014 EPFL Summer Research Internship Program. Working with Daniela Biziato, he has investigated the role of tumor-associated macrophages in secondary resistance to targeted therapies.


Erik Ferreira Erik Ferreira
Bachelor student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Erik Ferreira de Alencar is a bachelor student in Biomedicine at the Karolinska Institute. He is Swedish with Brazilian origin and was raised in Stockholm. He joined Prof. De Palma’s lab in 2014 to perform his bachelor thesis. In collaboration with Ioanna Keklikoglou, he has studied the impact of chemotherapy on cancer-cell derived exosomes using in vitro and in vivo approaches.


Shodai Takahashi Shodai Takahashi
Visiting PhD student in 2014
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Shodai Takahashi is a PhD student majoring in chemical biology at the University of Tokyo, Japan. He joined Dr. De Palma’s lab at EPFL as a member of a summer internship program supported by Graduate Program for Leaders in Life Innovation (GPLLI) in 2014. He worked with Caroline, Claudio, and Mario to investigate the relationship between miRNA expression and the macrophage phenotype in cancer.


Yannick Francioli Yannick Francioli
Bachelor student
FORMER LAB MEMBER

Yannick Francioli joined the De Palma’s lab in 2014 to perform his bachelor thesis, working with Mario Leonardo Squadrito on the role of miRNAs in macrophage survival.