Lab members

The Gregersen lab was formed at the University of Copenhagen in the spring of 2021. We are a young and friendly team of transcription enthusiasts.

Lea H. Gregersen

Principal Investigator

Lea is an experimental biologist with more than 15 years’ experience in RNA biology and transcription. She did her undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). In 2009 she moved to Germany, where she did her PhD at the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) with Markus Landthaler. In 2014 she moved to the UK where she did her postdoc at the Francis Crick Institute in London under the supervision of Jesper Svejstrup, supported by an EMBO long-term fellowship. Here, she became fascinated by the coordination between transcription and RNA processing.

After more than 12 years abroad, Lea returned to Copenhagen in 2021.

Email: leag@sund.ku.dk

Quentin Thomas

Postdoc

Quentin joined the lab in May 2021 and is currently funded by a Lundbeck postdoctoral fellowship.

Quentin is an experimental and computational biologist. He did his undergraduate studies in ’bioinformatics’ at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Scilifelab). In 2017 he moved to Denmark, where he did his PhD working with transcription mechanisms in the model plant Arabidopis supervised by Sebastian Marquardt (UCPH). After graduating his PhD in 2021 he joined Lea’s lab to study the cellular stress in the context of transcription.

Quentin really enjoys developing, optimizing, and analyzing new high-throughput sequencing techniques to characterize fundamental transcription processes. And on his spare time, he enjoys fencing and taking care of his plants.

Email: qthomas@sund.ku.dk

Haiyue Liu

Postdoc

Haiyue joined the lab in August 2022 as a a postdoc.

She did her Master’s thesis in Peng Wang’s lab at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIBS, CAS). There she studied transcription factors and miRNAs in tumor progression. She also got trained in bioinformatics and was very into it. After that, she did her PhD in bioinformatics in Nikolaus Rajewsky’s lab at the Berlin Institute of Medical Systems Biology (BIMSB) of the Max Delbrück Center (MDC). She collaborated with biologists and developed bioinformatics tools to study mRNA kinetic rates of single cells in the cell cycle process.

Haiyue joined Lea’s lab to study transcription dynamics. In her spare time, she likes cycling and enjoying the nature.

Email: hailiu@sund.ku.dk

Smaragda Kompocholi

Postdoc

Smaragda is an experimental biologist. She studied Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH). In 2017, she moved to Denmark, where she attended the “Molecular Biomedicine” Master’s program at the University of Copenhagen (KU). During her master thesis, she got introduced to the DNA damage repair field, under the supervision of Michael Lisby. Smaragda joined the lab in April 2021 and she will investigate the role of SCAF proteins in transcription and co-transcriptional processing.

In her spare time, Smaragda enjoys cycling (Copenhagen is the perfect city for that!) meeting friends and doing puzzles!

Email: smaragda@sund.ku.dk

Henriette Kring Mangor Iversen

PhD student

Henriette is an experimental biologist with a Masters degree in Biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen. In her thesis project she studied replication stress and DNA damage repair under the supervision of Michael Lisby, which sparked and interest in the DNA field. Henriette joined the lab in January 2022, and her project focuses on investigating the role of SCAF proteins in transcription and co-transcriptional processing, as well as possibly in DNA damage response.

In her spare time, Henriette enjoys grabbing a beer with friends, knitting and attending the occasional yoga class.

Email: hkmi@sund.ku.dk

Sigrid Egevang Jensen

Research Assistant

Sigrid is an experimental biologist holding an MSc degree in Biochemistry and Protein Chemistry from University of Copenhagen (UCPH). Coming from the field of integrative structural biology, she biochemically and functionally characterized a human taste receptor as part of her Master’s thesis in the lab of Henriette Autzen. With a keen interest in the molecular mechanisms by which proteins delicately regulate biological processes, Sigrid joined the Gregersen lab in June 2025 to study cellular stress in the context of transcription.

Beyond science, Sigrid enjoys knitting, running, and exploring the diverse culinary scene of Copenhagen together with friends.

Email: sejensen@sund.ku.dk