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
Emma Lesage
Postdoc
Emma joined the lab in September 2022.
After a scholar cursus combining molecular and cellular biology, genetics and health, she did her master’s thesis in Gadal team at the CBI in Toulouse. She worked on non-coding RNA regulating ribosomal DNA chromatin state and ribosomal RNA production in yeast. Then, still at the CBI, Emma chose to perform her PhD in Legube team on the role of the histone reader Spindlin1 and transcriptional repression in DNA double-strand break repair in active genes on human cells.
She decided to join Lea’s lab to continue working and increasing knowledge of transcription and RNA biology. In her spare time, she enjoys dancing, giving massages and going to concerts and festivals.
Email: emlesage@sund.ku.dk
Smaragda Kompocholi
PhD student
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
Karina Rasmussen
Lab technician
Karina was the first person to join the lab in early 2021. She manages the lab, takes care of orders, organises lab duties and still has time to do experiments.
Karina joined ICMM in 2007 and has been working mostly with intestinal explants, biochemical analysis, histology, immunolabelling and microscopy in her previous group.
In her spare time she enjoys time with family, friends, her dog and to listen to music.
Email: karinara@sund.ku.dk
Liyang Wu
Master student
Liyang did her bachelor’s degree in bioscience at Nanjing Normal University in China. Four years of study gave her a solid foundation in biology and she enjoyed doing cell and molecular experiments in the lab. In 2021, she started the biology (cell biology and physiology) Master’s programme at the University of Copenhagen. After completing the courses, she joined the lab in July 2022 as a master thesis student, investigating the role of RNA polymerase II co-factors in response to stress.
In addition to enjoying the dedicated time doing experiments in the lab, she also likes to talk about science and life with everyone (listen more now, talk more in the future : ) ). Every weekend she chooses to go out for a walk, wherever she goes, because she really likes the temperature and atmosphere of Copenhagen.
Email: liyangwu@sund.ku.dk
August Sveen Jespersen
Master student
August joined the lab in September 2022.
Email: augustj@sund.ku.dk
Karoline Olga Kehlet
Master student
Karoline joined the lan in February 2023.
Email: kkehlet@sund.ku.dk
Alumni
No one has left the lab yet 😉
Gegersen Lab 