The above picture of the group was taken at the lab retreat at Kalø February 2020. Below you can find an overview of the current lab members with links to their personal profiles at Aarhus University. A list of lab alumni is available at the bottom of the page. Photo by Anne Færch.
Associate Professor 2016-
Ebbe Sloth Andersen has been head of the Biomolecular Design group since January 2012. He obtained his PhD degree at Aarhus University in 2006, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for DNA nanotechnology (CDNA) at Aarhus University, and has been a visiting associate at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) working with Paul Rothemund the inventor of the DNA origami method. For more details and contact info see Ebbe's profiles at AU Pure, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and Publons.
Assistant Professor 2021-2022, Postdoc 2017-2021
George Pothoulakis is an Assistant Professor in the Andersen Lab, where he has been working since October 2017. George obtained his PhD in Bioengineering at Imperial College London during his time in the Tom Ellis Lab. His research interests revolve around the fields of synthetic biology and genetic engineering and is now working on in vivo applications of RNA origami structures. For more details and contact info see profiles at Aarhus University and LinkedIn.
Assistant Professor 2023-2024, Postdoc 2022-2023
Emil started as a Postdoc in the Andersen lab November 2022 and is studying the cotranscriptional folding procesess of RNA structures using Cryo-EM on the COFOLD project, funded by NNF. He obtained his PhD at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus university in 2016 and has since worked as a postdoc at AU and at MRC. His research insterests include nucleic acid structures, single-molecule studies and origin of life.
PhD student 2021-2024
Martin is doing his PhD studies as part of the project "RNA-based platform for metabolic pathway engineering" funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Martin did his master thesis at the University of Strasbourg.
PhD student 2023-2027
Nikolah is doing his PhD studies on ''Studies on co-transcriptional folding of RNA nanostructures'' as part of the COFOLD syngery project funded by Novo Nordisk Foundation. Nikolaj has a background in molecular biology from where he finished his bacehlor degree.
Technician
Technician
Assistant Professor 2019-2024, Postdoc 2012-2015+2016-2019
Cody is assistant professor in RNA biochemistry and RNA nanotechnology. Cody started as a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen lab in September 2012 and developed the single-stranded RNA origami method (Geary-2014). From August 2015 to May 2016 he worked with Paul Rothemund at Caltech and then returned to the Andersen lab in June 2016 to work on developing the next generation of RNA origami software. Cody did his undergraduate studies at Caltech and his PhD studies in the laboratory of Luc Jaeger at University of California Santa Barbara. For more details and contact info see profiles at Aarhus University, LinkedIn and Google Scholar.
Research Assistant 202-2023, MSc 2021-2022,
Kalinka started as a research assistant in the Andersen lab July 2022 and is wokring on continuing the Cryo-EM pipeline on the COFOLD project funded by NNF. Furthermore, she is helping out with a broad range of administrative tasks in the group. She has a background in Nanoscience and finished her masterproject on Self-Assembling RNA Origamis in the Andersen lab in June 2022.
Postdoc 2022-2023, PhD student 2018-2021
Néstor Sampedro has been accepted for the DNA-Robotics PhD position in our lab by the Graduate School for Science and Technology (GSST). He will be part of the European network on DNA-based nanorobotics (DNA-Robotics) funded by the European Commission – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
Postdoc 2022-2023, PhD student 2019-2022
Bente did an industrial PhD project in collaboration with Novo Nordisk with co-supervisor Vera Schramke funded by the Innovation Foundation Denmark. She has formerly been working in the laboratory of Thomas Poulsen at Department of Chemistry. Her study background is medicinal chemistry.
Postdoc 2021-22, PhD student 2017-2021
Michael started his PhD studies in the Andersen lab in February 2017. He obtained his bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology from Aarhus University in 2015 and was a research intern in the lab of prof. David James at the University of Sydney in 2016. His research interests are in the areas of RNA nanotechnology, non-coding RNA biology and synthetic biology.
PostDoc 2019-2022
Ewan started his post-doctoral position in the Andersen lab in June 2019. He previously worked in Dr. Sean McKenna's lab at the University of Manitoba, where he investigated RNA G-quadruplexes and associated helicase proteins. His current research is focused on single-particle cryo-EM analysis of RNA-protein complexes using RNA origami scaffolds. For more details and contact info see profiles at Aarhus University, LinkedIn and Google Scholar.
Postdoc 2018-2022
Adrien Boussebayle started as a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen Lab November 2018. He did his PhD studies in laboratory of Beatrix Suess as part of the MetaRNA PhD school. His main research focus is on selection procedures to develop novel sensor elements.
Assistant Professor 2020, Postdoc 2015-2020
Mette has taken a center manager job in November 2020. Mette was a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen lab since the beginning of 2015-2020. She got her Master's degree at the institute of Physics and Nanotechnology, University of Aalborg under the supervision of Meg Duroux. She finished her PhD in 2014, which she did in the groups of Jørgen Kjems and Victoria Birkedal at iNANO, Aarhus University, working on single molecule FRET studies of DNA and RNA nanostructures. In the Andersen lab, her main focus is to develop RNA sensors using fluorescent aptamers. She has recently invented the apta-FRET system and created apta-FRET-based sensor devices (Jepsen et al., 2018). For more details and contact info see AU profile and LinkedIn.
Postdoc 2017-2019
Ilenia Manuguerra was a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen Lab from April 2017 to October 2019. Ilenia did her PhD study in the laboratory of Kurt Gothelf as part of the European ITN EscoDNA, where she developed new DNA architectures and a DNA origami-aided gene synthesis method. Her research interests include DNA and RNA nanotechnology, genetic engineering, in vivo and in vitro selection of biomolecules, and sensor development.
Postdoc 2016-2019, PhD student 2013-2016
Guido Grossi was a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen Lab from September 2016 to October 2019, where he also did his PhD study as part of the EscoDNA PhD school from September 2013. He studied biotechnology at Parma University, Italy. His research interests include DNA and RNA nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology.
Postdoc 2017-2018
Andreas Bøggild now works at the cryo-EM facility at iNANO, Aarhus University. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Andersen Lab in the fall of 2017 to the end of 2018 working with single particle EM. He did his PhD studies at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, AU, finishing in 2012. His comes from a background in crystallography and has a main focus on structural characterisation of biomolecules. Andreas can be reached by phone at +45 23721981 or by email at anbog@inano.au.dk.
BSc, PhD, and Postdoc 2010-2018
Steffen studied nanoscience at iNANO and did his BSc project in the group of Jørgen Kjems under the supervision of Ebbe S. Andersen, and was part of the 2011 BIOMOD team 'Danish Nano Artists'. The team developed an RNA structure with intrinsic siRNAs and the project won the Grand Prize. Steffen was a PhD student in the Andersen Lab from 2012 to 2017, where he worked on DNA and RNA origami structures and biosensors. He continued to worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab until 2018. Currently, he is working with Enterprise Risk Management as Risk Manager at Energinet. Steffen can be reached through LinkedIn, by phone (+45 21688818), or email (steffensparvath@gmail.com).
Postdoc 2015, PhD student, 2012-2015
During his PhD studies, Denis developed a single-molecule biosensor device using the DNA origami method. The sensor is a sophisticated nanomechanical device that can be used to detect small oligos in concentrations down to 100 pM. The biosensor exploits arrays of donor and acceptor fluorophores that results in a high intensity output signal, which allows single-device detection using a standard microscope. Denis is currently a postdoc in the research group of Finn Skou Pedersen at Aarhus University. For more details and contact info see Denis' AU profile.
PhD student 2016-2019
Ane did her PhD study in nanoscience in the Andersen lab in close collaboration with the C. elegans lab of Anders Olsen at Aalborg University. Ane’s interest lie within the field of synthetic and systems biology. Ane also did her Master thesis in the Andersen lab and obtained her Master degree in molecular biology in 2015. Ane got her Bachelors degree in molecular biology in the group of Jørgen Kjems as a member of the team that participated in the 2013 BIOMOD competition at Harvard University.
PhD student, 2015-2017
Ditte has a background in molecular biology working with nervous system development. She changed field completely and worked on a project where she visualized the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae in watercolor paintings and computer illustrations. Following her graduation, Ditte stayed at iNANO as a maternity cover for the PhD administrator for one year. Currently, she works in the group of Professor Kurt Gothelf as a center administrator. For more details and contact info see Ditte's AU profile.
Master student 2017-2018
Mads Jeppesen studied Nanoscience and did his Bachelor and Master thesis in the Andersen Lab. During his Masters project he was a 2018 Novo Scholarship recipient. He's worked on a de novo protein design project in collaboration between Per Junior Greisen at Novo Nordisk and Ingemar André from Lund University. His research interest are proteins and computational design of proteins. Mads Jeppesen is now doing his PhD studies in the André lab at Lund University.
BSc and MSc student, 2014-2016
Maria did her BSc project in the Andersen Lab as part of the 2014 BIOMOD team 'Detector Gadget' that worked on developing a broad dynamic range sensor based on RNA aptamers. As a MSc student she worked with expression of fluorescent RNA-based biosensors in E.coli. She currently works as a supporter at Novo Nordisk.
Postdocs
Master students
Bachelor students
Visiting students
