News

Navpreet Kaur has joined the lab for a 3-month internship as part of their MSc in Cancer Biology program at the University of Heidelberg. She will work with Jan on the mechanisms of PLAG1-driven tumorigenesis. Welcome!

Our work on the development of unipolar brush cells is now published on bioRxiv. Congrats to co-first authors Vuslat, Lisa, and Wouter-Michiel! Link here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.27.740783v1

Vuslat and Patricia represented the lab at the ISPNO in Australia, presenting our work on cell plasticity in medulloblastoma, UBC development, and the male sex bias. Vuslat was also supported by a Kind-Philipp-Stiftung travel grant.

Eva Eisemann and Lucy Trender have joined the lab for a 3-month internship as part of their MSc in Neuroscience program at the University of Heidelberg. They will work with Fred on the role of ELP1 mutations in SHH-medulloblastoma. Welcome!

Nico Remmert and Arian Wick have joined the lab as HiWis while obtaining their MD at the University of Heidelberg. Welcome!

This fellowship allows Vuslat the chance to present her work on UBC development at 2026 International PhD Student Cancer Conference at the NKI

Jan successfully defended his PhD to become the third student to graduate from the lab. Congrats Dr. Vaillant!

Elli successfully defended her MSc thesis on the development of the Müllerian duct. She will join our lab in July as a PhD student to continue working on this project. Congrats Elli!

Luca and our collaborators in the Northcott Lab at St. Jude have uploaded a paper on the male bias in medulloblastoma on bioRxiv. Please check it out and give us your feedback!

Matt Kraljevic joined the lab as a staff bioinformatician after completing his MSc at the University of Manitoba. Welcome Matt!

Piyush's paper on our hindbrain single-cell multiome is on bioRxiv!

Paula successfully defended her MSc thesis. Congrats Paula! She now joins Ilon Liu's lab at the Charité for her PhD.

Daniel van Dijk joins us from the University of Amsterdam for his 6-months research project. He will work with Vuslat on generating novel models of human cerebellum development.

Jan's paper describing a mouse model of PLAG1 published in Neuro Oncology Advances. Paper here.

Luca was awarded the best poster prize at the DKFZ PhD symposium. Congrats Luca!

Lexi joins our lab for a 1 year post-bac year as she applies to med school. She was previously a BSc summer intern. Welcome back!

Elli joins us again to investigate regression of the male Müllerian duct - welcome back!

Our collaborative work with Stefan Pfister and Thomas Höfer's labs investigating clonal selection in oncogene-driven Group 3/4 medulloblastoma was published today in Nature. Congrats to Konstantin, Piyush, and Verena! Article here: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08973-5

Nouhaila joins the lab as a co-supervised student with Supat Thongjuea. She will use computational methods to better under Group 4 medulloblastomas.

Lisa successfully defended her PhD thesis - Congrats Dr. Spänig!

Paula returns to us to complete her MSc thesis, generating new organoid based models of PLAG tumorigenesis. 

Mallory joins our lab as a PhD student to generate new cerebellar Organoid-based models of medulloblastoma.

Sarah joins us from the Siletti lab at the UMCU to learn iPSC differentiation techniques. Welcome Sarah!

Luca gives a talk about his organoid models at the CSHL Development & 3D Modeling of the Human Brain conference in NY, USA. He was awarded a Kind-Philipp-Foundation award for pediatric oncology research Travel Grant. Congrats Luca!

The DFG grant funds our work on studying neurodevelopmental principles to better understand medulloblastoma formation.

Lena speaks at Institute Curie Orsay.

The Kutscher-Zuckermann labs win the annual PhD hat competition for their great work on Fred's PhD hat. Pringles for the entire advent!

Lena presents Lisa's work on the development of unipolar brush cells using multicontent imaging.

Elli joins the lab for an 8-week internship as part of her MSc in Developmental Biology. She will investigate cell death using the Müllerian duct system.

Vuslat Akcay joins us for her PhD, where she'll investigate what developmental signaling pathways are hijacked by tumor cells. Welcome Vuslat!

Fred successfully defended his PhD to become the first student to graduate from the lab. Congrats Fred!

Paula and Tessa join the lab as MSc interns, as part of their MSc Neuroscience degree. They will work with Jan to investigate dependencies in PLAG-driven gliomas. Welcome!

Lena and Prof. Dr. Simone Mayer co-hosted the first Cerebellum Development and Disease conference in Heidelberg. 55 cerebellum researchers gathered at the Academy of Science in the Old Town to discuss all things Cb.