2024
Group Photo 2021
Technician
Camille Perazzolo performed her Bachelor in medical biology with clinical chemistry option at the Paul Lambin Institute (Haute école Da Vinci), where she graduated in June 2012 with Distinction. Since 2012, she has been working at ULB on projects related to zebrafish. She has strong expertise in handing, maintainance and transgenesis of zebrafish, as well as molecular biology and confocal imaging. She is currently focusing on developing knock-in tools to visualize the dynamic response of the cells to stress.
Current PhD Students
Garnik Hovhannisyan, graduated from a M.Sc in Biomedical Sciences in 2023 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. During his master thesis under the supervision of Dr. Esteban Gurzov, he focused on studying the role of PTPRK in MASLD and hepatocellular carcinoma in the context of obesity. He joined the group in 2024, being co-supervised with Dr. Esteban Gurzov. His project focusses on the role of PTPRK in lipid metabolism and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma in fish and mouse. For this, Garnik received a PhD fellowship from FNRS (FRIA) for four years.
Elif Eski, the lab’s first PhD student, joined on 01 November, 2019. She obtained her M.Sc. degree from Bogazici University, Turkey. During her master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. Stefan H. Fuss, she focussed on the role of Wnt/β-catenin signaling during regenerative neurogenesis in adult zebrafish olfactory epithelium. In 2021, Elif received a PhD fellowship from FNRS (ASP) for three years. Elif is focusing her thesis on the cellular source of liver regeneration.
Inés Garteizgogeascoa Suñer. Graduated in Biochemistry from University Autónoma de Madrid, Spain; followed by a M.Sc. degree in Integrative Biology and Physiology from University Claude Bernard de Lyon, France (2019). During her master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. Karine Gauthier and Dr.Fréderic Flamant, she focused on studying thyroid hormone-mediated thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue in mice. She was able to identify potential new thermogenic pathways, independent from UCP-1 classic mechanism, regulated by thyroid hormone in response to prolonged cold exposure. She joined the group in 2020 to work on developing tools for imaging of signalling pathways in zebrafish.
Past PhD Students
Macarena Pozo Morales. completed her PhD in 2023, titled “Roles and regulations of starvation-induced hepatic steatosis”. During her doctoral thesis, she focused on the impact of starvation on the zebrafish liver. For this, she developed in vivo imaging setup to visualize calcium dynamics and lipid droplets. Her first author paper was published in the journal Hepatology.
In 2024, she was awarded the CNIO Friends Postdoctoral fellowship to conduct her Postdoctoral research at Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) in the group of Dr Eva González Suárez.
Group Leader
Sumeet Pal Singh, PhD is an alumni of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. He graduated in 2004 with a B.Tech. degree in Biological Sciences and Bioengineering. Directly after bachelor’s degree, he joined the PhD program at Duke University, USA where he performed his doctorate under the supervision of Dr. Kenneth Poss. For his thesis, Sumeet worked on the cellular basis of bone regeneration in the zebrafish fin amputation model.
For post-doctoral work, Sumeet started work on planarian model system, a fascinating organism with extraordinary regenerative capacity, in the lab of Dr. Jochen Rink at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), Germany.
For his second post-doc, he returned to zebrafish research in the lab of Dr. Nikolay Ninov at Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD), Germany. Focussing on the pancreatic beta-cells, Sumeet uncovered latent heterogeneity in the beta-cell population. For this, he developed several transgenic reagents to interrogate the proliferative and functional differences among individual cells. He was awarded an EFSD/Lilly Young Investigator Fellowship for his efforts.
In 2019, Sumeet was awarded the Mandat d’impulsion scientifique - mobilité Ulysse (MISU) by Le Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) to start his group at IRIBHM, part of ULB in Brussels, Belgium.
In 2022, Sumeet was award tenure at ULB.
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