The members of the Viral Ecology and Omics Group within the Cluster of Excellence "Balance of the Microverse" at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany.
VEO and MGX at the Senckenberg Museum
Image: Roos Brouns
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2049
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2037
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2034
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2060
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2042
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2047
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2037
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2034
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2049
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2060
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2049
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2046
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2037
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2034
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2049
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2034
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2060
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2037
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2042
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2060
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2042
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2034
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Microverse Center Jena, Room 2042
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 5
07745 Jena
Anna-Maria Kästner (FSU Jena): since April 2026. Topic: Functional Evaluation of an AI-Generated Phage.
Richa GeorgeExternal link (FSU Jena): since October 2025. Topic: Rhizobia–phage interactions across the soil-to-nodule gradient.
Samira Joy Quanz (FSU Jena): since October 2025. Topic: Ecological mechanisms in iridescent bacteria.
Rene ZschocheExternal link (FSU Jena): October 2023 - September 2024. Topic: Traits of keystone Vibrio phages.
Tia WünschmannExternal link (FSU Jena): July 2024. Topic: In vitro phage production.
Melanie WahlExternal link (FSU Jena): May 2024. Topic: Phage-induced rhizobia evolution.
Pim van HelvoortExternal link (Leiden University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands): September 2024 - June 2025. Topic: Microverse Mapper website.
Mohit Kumar: online. Period: since July 2025. Topic: Phage-encoded antibiotic resistance genes.
Sirsha Debnath: online. Period: February - September 2024. Topic: Extrametabolome of metabolically cooperating yeast communities.
Pablo Bruna
Image: Pablo BrunaPablo Bruna | April 2026 - August 2026
Project: The role of the mobilome in the rhizosphere soil microbiome and its contribution to phosphorus cycling.
Current position: PhD student at Universidad de La Frontera in Temuco, Chile.
Patrick de Jonge
Image: Patrick de JongePatrick de Jonge | February 2026
Project: Eco-evolutionary dynamics of human gut phages across a decade of life differs between health-status and population groups.
Current Position: Patrick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of experimental vascular medicine at the Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands.
Yuxuan Chen
Image: Yuxuan ChenYuxuan Chen | February 2025 - February 2026
Project: Impact of soil organic carbon on the virome in soybean-producing area.
Current Position: Yuxuan is a PhD student at the Zhejiang University, China.
Yifei Xu
Image: Yifei XuYifei Xu | September 2024 - August 2025
Project: Associations between microbial features and antibiotic resistance genes presence.
Current position: Yifei is a PhD student at the Nanjing Agricultural University, China.
Katarzyna Moranska
Image: Katarzyna MoranskaKatarzyna Morańska | July 2024, March and June 2025
Project: Analysis of the uterine, vaginal, and gut microbiome of women with gynecological pathologies.
Current Position: Katarzyna is a PhD student in the Laboratory of Human Biological Development and Disease at Adam Mickiewicz UniversityExternal link, Poznan, Poland.
Ibtissam Nejjam
Image: Ibtissam NejjamIbtissam Nejjam | November 2024 - February 2025
Project: Antimicrobial resistance in feces and slurry from dairy cattle, comparing different livestock production systems.
Current position: Ibtissam is a PhD student at the Centro de Investigación y Formación Agrarias, Spain.
Rabia Tabassum
Image: Rabia TabassumRabia Tabassum | October 2023 - March 2024
Project: Viromes in low free-energy systems.
Current position: Rabia has now the position of a technical assistant at the VEO Group!
Prof. Heyde Francielle Carmo França
Image: Heyde Francielle Carmo FrançaHeyde Francielle Carmo França | February 2024 - March 2024
Project: Prediction of abiotic factors of bacterial habitats using machine learning techniques
Current position: Heyde is currently a professor at the Federal Institute of GoiásExternal link in the undergraduate program in Computer Science and in the postgraduate program in Agricultural Sciences. For more information, have a look at Heyde's profile here.
José Luis López Arcondo
Image: José Luis López ArcondoJosé Luis López Arcondo| June 2023 - October 2023
Project: Metabolic modeling and carbon use efficiency in soils
Paper: José Luis López , Arista Fourie, Sanne WM Poppeliers et al. (2023): Growth rate is a dominant factor predicting the rhizosphere effectExternal link . ISME J. doi: 10.1038/s41396-023-01453-6External link
Current position: José is now a Postdoc at the VEO Group!
Susanna R. Grigson
Image: Susanna R. GrigsonSusie Grigson | September - December 2023
Project: inferring bacteriophage functions from protein-protein interactions
Current position: Susie is a PhD student at Flinders UniversityExternal link in Australia. For more information, have a look at Susie's profile here.
Dan Liu
Image: Dan LiuDan Liu | June 2023 - September 2023
Project: Predicting virus-host interactions with transitional learning Stage Researcher of the VIROINF ConsortiumExternal link.
Current position: Dan is a PhD student in virology at MRC-University of Glasgow Center for Virus ResearchExternal link (UK). Her main focus is on predicting virus-host interactions using protein language models.
Daniel Garza
Image: Daniel GarzaDaniel Garza | January - July 2023
Project: Modeling human gut bacterial life strategies
Paper: Daniel Rios Garza , Didier Gonze, Haris Zafeiropoulos, Bin Liu, Karoline Faust (2023): Metabolic models of human gut microbiota: Advances and challengesExternal link , Cell Systems Perspective Volume 14, ISSUE 2 , P109-121, doi: 10.1016/j .cels.2022.11.002External link
Current position: Daniel is a junior scientist in the INRAEExternal link PROSEExternal link near Paris, France.
Cédric Lood
Image: Cédric LoodCédric Lood | October 2022 - March 2023
Project: Bacterial defense systems
Paper: Dann Turner, Andre N. Shkoporov, Cédric Lood . et al. (2023) : Abolishment of morphology-based taxa and change to binomial species namesExternal link , Arch Virol 168 , 74, doi: doi.org/10.1007/s00705-022-05694-2External link
Current position: Cédric is a postdoctoral fellow of the FWOExternal link . He is currently working at the Lab of Gene Technology, KU LeuvenExternal link (Belgium). His main focus in on phage-bacteria interactions in the clinical context of phage therapy against ESKAPE pathogens.
Adéla Finstrlova
Image: Adéla FinstrlovaAdéla Finstrlova | January - March 2023
Project: Phage defense systems
Current position: Adéla is working in Brno, Czechia in the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics of MicroorganismsExternal link as a researcher. Her main focus is on phage-host interaction, she primarily studies bacteria from genus Staphylococcus and their phages.
Yasas Wijesekara
Image: Yasas WijesekaraYasas Rajitha Wijesekara | February - May 2022
Project: A machine learning pipeline to identify and characterize novel viruses in metagenome data
Current position: Yasas is an Early Stage Researcher at the VIROINF ConsortiumExternal link. He is currently enrolled for a PhD in medical informatics at the medical faculty of the University of GreifswaldExternal link (Germany). His main focus is on developing machine-learning methods for identifying viruses in metagenome and genome sequencing data.
Xiu Jia
Image: Xiu JiaXiu Jia | September 2022 - December 2025
Project: Microbial community coalescence in estuarine systems, integrating experimental, bioinformatic, and modeling approaches to reveal the mechanisms of microbial adaptation to environmental change.
For more information, have a look at Xiu's profile here.
Maria Beatriz Walter Costa
Image: Maria Beatriz Walter CostaMaria Beatriz Walter Costa | October 2022 - September 2025
Project: Connection between features of prokaryotic genomes and their abiotic environments with Machine Learning and Bioinformatics methods.
For more information, have a look at Bia's profile here.
Pilleriin Peets
Image: Pilleriin PeetsPilleriin Peets | February 2023 - January 2025
Project: Metabolomics data mining and modeling - Finding ways to describe and compare the chemical space of different biomes, using chemical characterizations like chemical fingerprints instead of final annotation.
Current position: Pilleriin is currently a researcher at the University of Tartu in Estonia. She leads a Chemical Space & Omics groupExternal link, focusing on non-targeted mass spectrometry studies and computational chemistry. For more information, have a look at Pilleriin's profile here.
Jannick Van Cauwenberghe
Image: Jannick Van CauwenbergheJannick van Cauwenberghe | April 2022 - August 2024
Project: Quantifying the impact of bacteriophages and phage traitson bacterial population structure.
Current position: Jannick is a molecular biologist at the AZ Maria Middelares in Gent, Belgium.