Team
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
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Bäcker, Marcel Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 203
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Marcel Bäcker -
Brouns, Rose Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 105
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Roos Brouns -
Castillo Vilcahuaman, Camila Marlen Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 106
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Camila Marlen Castillo Vilcahuaman -
Doijad, Swapnil Prakash, Dr Bioinformatics Lab Manager Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 204
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Swapnil Doijad -
Dutilh, Bas, Prof. Dr Head of the Research Group Viral Ecology and Omics Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 103
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Bas Dutilh -
Fofanov, Mikhail Doctoral researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 105
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Mikhail Fofanov -
Geliashvili, Natia Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 202
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Natia Geliashvili -
Jia, Xiu, Dr Postdoctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 106
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Xiu Jia -
Khot, Varada Milind, Dr Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 203
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Sybille Huck -
Litos, Aristeidis Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 106
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Aristeides Litos -
López Arcondo, José Luis Postdoctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 203
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: José Luis López -
Massenberg, Dorothee Isabell Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 204
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Dorothee Massenberg -
Meijer, Jeroen, Dr Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 105
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Jeroen Meijer -
Muraya, Angela Wanjugu Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 202
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Angela Muraya -
Phongtang, Wallapat Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 202
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Nisanart Kaenwong -
Rozwalak, Piotr Jaroslaw Doctoral Researcher Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 105
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Piotr Rozwalak -
Schubert, Torsten, Dr Laboratory Manager Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 204
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Torsten Schubert -
Siemers, Malte, Dr Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 106
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Malte Siemers -
Studenik, Sandra, Dr Technical Assistant Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 204
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Sandra Studenik -
Tabassum, Rabia Professorship of Viral Ecology and Omics
Room 202
Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 1
07745 Jena
Image: Rabia Tabassum
Former members
Maria Beatriz Walter Costa | October 2022 - September 2025
Project:
For more information have a look at Bia's profile here
Pilleriin Peets February 2023 - January 2025
Pilleriin Peets
Image: Pilleriin Peets
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.
Jannick van Cauwenberghe | April 2022 - August 2024
Jannick Van Cauwenberghe
Image: Jannick Van Cauwenberghe
Project: Quantifying the impact of bacteriophages and phage traitson bacterial population structure.
Visitors
Katarzyna Morańska | July 2024, March and June 2025
Katarzyna Moranska
Image: Katarzyna Moranska
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.
Yifei Xu | September 2024 - August 2025
Project: Antibiotics resistance carriage in bacterial genomes.
Current position: PhD student, Nanjing Agricultural University, China.
Ibtissam Nejjam | November 2024 - February 2025
Project: Topic: Antibiotic resistance in cattle farms.
Current position: PhD student, Centro de Investigación y Formación Agrarias, Spain.
Yuxuan Chen | January - December 2024
Project: Impact of soil organic carbon on the virome.
Current position: PhD student, Zhejiang University, China.
Rabia Tabassum | October 2023 - March 2024
Project: Viromes in low free-energy systems.
Heyde Francielle Carmo França | February 2024 - March 2024
Prof. Heyde Francielle Carmo França
Image: Heyde Francielle Carmo FrançaProject: 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. Read more about Heyde and her work here .
José Luis López | June 2023 - October 2023
José Luis López
Image: José Luis LópezProject: 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!
Susie Grigson | September - December 2023
Susanna R. Grigson
Image: Susanna R. GrigsonProject: inferring bacteriophage functions from protein-protein interactions
Current position: Susie is a PhD student at Flinders UniversityExternal link in Australia. Read more about Susie and her work hereExternal link .
Dan Liu | June 2023 - September 2023
Dan Liu
Image: Dan LiuProject: Predicting virus-host interactions with transitional learning
Stage Researcher of the VIROINF ConsortiumExternal link. She is currently 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 | January - July 2023
Daniel Garza
Image: Daniel GarzaProject: 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 | October 2022 - March 2023
Cédric Lood
Image: Cédric LoodProject: 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 | January - March 2023
Adéla Finstrlova
Image: Adéla FinstrlovaProject: Phage defense systems
Papers: to be done
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 Rajitha Wijesekara | February - May 2022
Yasas Wijesekara
Image: Yasas WijesekaraProject: 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.
MSc and BSc students
- Samira Joy Quanz: MSc student, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Period: since October 2025. Topic: Ecological mechanisms in iridescent bacteria.
- Mohit Kumar: online. Period: since July 2025. Topic: Phage-encoded antibiotics resistance genes.
- Pim van Helvoort: BSc student, Leiden University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands. Period: September 2024 - June 2025. Topic: Microverse Mapper website.
- Samira Joy Quanz: MSc student, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Period: since October 2025. Topic: Ecological mechanisms in iridescent bacteria.
- Rene Zschoche: MSc student, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Period: October 2023 - September 2024. Topic: Traits of keystone Vibrio phages.
- Melanie Wahl: MSc student, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Period: May 2024. Topic: Phage induced rhizobia evolution.
- Tia Wünschmann: MSc student, Friedrich Schiller University, Germany. Period: Juli 2024. Topic: In vitro phage production.
- Sirsha Debnath: online. Period: February - September 2024. Topic: Extrametabolome of metabolically cooperating yeast communities.
- Mohit Kumar: online. Period: since July 2025. Topic: Phage-encoded antibiotics resistance genes.