Lab Alumni

Iacovos Michael
Iacovos received his Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy (2002) from the University of Patras in Greece, and then moved to Canada to purse graduate studies at the University of Toronto. He attained a Master’s degree in Biochemistry (2005) in the laboratory Dr. E. P. Diamandis, during which be characterized the specificity of a trypsin-like serine peptidase, kallikrein-5, and its potential role in cancer progression. In 2010, he received a PhD in Medical Genetics in the laboratory Dr. Andras Nagy, during which he developed novel anti-VEGF biologics for local targeting of pathological neovascularization (angiogenesis) involved in eye diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, and tumour progression. He continued the development of bispecific anti-angiogenic biologics as a PostDoctoral Fellow in the laboratory Dr. Andras Nagy at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. In 2013, he joined the group Dr. Douglas Hanahan at the ISREC Institute, at the EPFL School of Life Sciences. His current research interests include the examination of the role of microRNAs in pancreatic cancer metastasis.

Gabriele Galliverti                   
Gabriele received his bachelor degree in Biotechnology from the University of Milan Bicocca in 2010. He did his master thesis project in the Dynamics of Immune Responses lab at San Raffaele Scientific Institute studying antiviral immune responses and new adjuvants for B cells, and he graduated in Molecular and Cellular Medical Biotechnology in 2012 at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. In 2018, he received his PhD in Biotechnology and Bioengineering from EPFL for his work in the Swartz and Hanahan lab, during which he developed a novel therapeutic vaccine formulation against HPV-related malignancies and studied the immunosuppressive barriers associated with these types of cancers. He is currently continuing his research on immunotherapy of HPV-related cancers as part of the Hanahan lab, focusing on the immunosuppressive role of myeloid cells.

Seiko Ishida
Seiko worked as a scientist in the Hanahan Lab from 20-  until 2014. She is now living in Japan.

Ksenya Shchors
Ksenya Shchors received her Master Degree in Biochemistry (1996) from Moscow State University, Russia. In 1996, she moved to Chicago to pursue a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from University of Illinois, Chicago. Her dissertation research, under the direction of Dr. Louis P. Deiss, focused on the role of non-coding RNAs in regulation of mRNA turnover.
She completed her Ph.D. in 2002, and joined the laboratory of Prof. Gerard I. Evan at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California San Francisco. There, she examined the mechanisms behind Myc-driven tumorigenesis in vivo. Additionally, she studied the contribution of Tsp53 in formation and maintenance of gliomas in vivo.
In 2009, she began her research in the group of Prof. Douglas Hanahan at EPFL. Her current work is focused on the tumor metabolic adaptations in vivo in mouse models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and glioma. 

Elizabeth Allen
Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in biology, and worked as a technician at Harbor-UCLA where she helped clone the steroid sulfatase gene, defects of which are the basis for X-linked ichthyosis. She received an MS/PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Michigan, where her studies focused on analyzing the structure and function of patient mutations in von Willebrand Factor protein. Her postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago involved engineering mouse models carrying desmosomal protein mutations to use reverse genetics to help identify human skin diseases associated with disruption of this complex. She went on to a position as a staff scientist at Stanford University, where she worked with the team that identified the role of the ubiquitin proteasome system in Giant Axonal Neuropathy. She joined the Hanahan group at UCSF to manage preclinical trials to study the mechanisms of resistance to antiangiogenic therapy, and continued this position at EPFL.

Courtney Thomas
Courtney Thomas completed her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry at UCLA in 2012. Her doctoral project focused on synthesis, characterization and testing of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems for tuberculosis and cancer therapies. This project required work in materials development and analysis, and biological methods. She joined the Hanahan lab as a postdoctoral researcher in 2013 to focus on expanding her knowledge of cancer biology. She is studying the role of pro-invasive genes in mechanisms of tumor growth and metastasis.

Julie Scotton
Julie graduated from the EPFL school of Life Sciences and Technology with a specialization in Molecular Medicine (2012). She did her master project at the University of Edinburg where she studied genes implicated in the proliferation of cancer stem cells in acute myeloid leukemia. She joined the Hanahan Lab in 2013 in order to perform her PhD studies. She is interested in the processes involved in cancer invasion and metastases, as well as combinatorial therapies in different mouse models of cancer.

Leanne Li
Leanne worked in the Hanahan Lab from September 2009 until November 2014. She is now a postdoc with Professor Tyler Jacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Agata Mlynska
Agata Mlynska graduated in Biochemistry (2012) from Vilnius University, Lithuania, where she characterized the methylation profile of IGF2 binding proteins in leukemia. In 2013 she started her doctoral project in the National Cancer Institute of Lithuania, focusing on the effect of systemic and local immunity in ovarian cancer. She joined the Hanahan lab in 2014 as a visiting doctoral assistant to study the role of immune microenvironment in melanoma development and response to treatment.

Adrian Duval
Adrian graduated in Medicine (2014) at the University of Lausanne. In 2015 he joined the Hanahan Lab at EPFL, where he started his MD-PhD thesis. He is studying the effects of losses of heterozygosity, dissecting the role of novel mechanisms in tumor progression and metastasis. He also uses a translational approach, studying pharmacological effects on tumor growth.

Antonio Cassarà
Antonio is a Bachelor student in Life Sciences at EPFL. He joined the Hanahan lab in 2015 for his Bachelor thesis. He worked with Krisztian Homickso on the melanoma project, particularly on the role of the tumor microenvironment on resistance to therapy.

Aristea Massaras
Aristea Massaras joined the laboratory as a student assistant in 2012. After receiving her Bachelor Degree in Life Sciences from EPFL in 2014, she continues functioning in the laboratory as a technician. She is performing daily laboratory maintenance duties and also involved in a number of scientific projects focused on finding cures for different tumor types including gliomas, melanomas and pancreatic adenocarcinomas.

Pasqualina Magliano
Pasqualina Magliano graduated from the University of Lausanne (UNIL) with a master’s in Biology in 2003. After, she started to work as technician in the laboratory of Philippe Reymond for one year on CATMA project and then for prof. Edward Farmer for two more years and finally for prof. Yves Poirier for five years, all at the Department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Lausanne. At the beginning, she worked mainly on Arabidopsis thaliana and assisted several post-doc’s with their projects. For the five last years, she worked on her own project, in parallel on Arabidopsis thaliana and Aspegillus nidulans. In between, she worked as technician for two years in a startup, Excellgene, where she was working on protein production and optimization in mammalian cells. In 2013, she joined first Lingner’s lab at the ISREC Institute at EPFL School of Life and then from end 2013 Hanahan’s lab where she is assisting Dr. Iacovos Michael.

Bruno Torchia
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.

Dorothée Demeester

Annissa Bayer
Annissa Bayer is Franco-Algerian and is married with 2 children. She was born in 1968 in Lyon – France. She joined the EPFL-SV in January 2014 and she provides administrative support to Professor Hanahan and his team at the CMSO lab. She received her high school degree (Baccalaureate in economics, 1988) in Lyon, then moved to Switzerland to look for a job opportunity. In between, she received her Administrative Assistant Certificate (2005), and then a Sales and Marketing Certificate in 2011.