About me

I am lecturer in the department of Biodiversity headed by Jens Boenigk at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. I am working as a bioinformatician with a focus on next-generation sequencing analysis in biodiversity research. This includes metagenome and -transcriptome studies for freshwater habitats, transcriptome and genome assemblies of protist model species (Chrysophyceae) and the assessment of their molecular reactions and responses to environmental stressors. Before, I have worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Genome Informatics headed by Sven Rahmann at the University Clinics in Essen. Former projects included the detection of structural variants in damaged genomes, functional and taxonomic assessment in metatranscriptome sequencing data and the analysis of new pathogens by assembling the genome and transcriptome. During my PhD I worked on methods for integrated network analysis using different *omics datasets in conjunction with biological networks.

(Co-) Supervised Students

PhD

  • Manan Shah (current)
  • Julia Nuy (finished 2020): The effects of the environment on microbial freshwater communities investigated using high-throughput sequencing
  • Stephan Majda (finished 2020): Evolution in Chrysophyceae regarding the nutritional mode and intraspecific variation based on comparative genomics
  • Nadine Graupner (finished 2018): Molecular insights into the functional diversity of protists

Master

  • Sandra Roeser (2020): Transcriptional responses of aquatic and terrestrial protistan communities to flooding events
  • Marius Welzel (2018): Development of an Amplicon Snakemake Workflow including a Novel K-Mer Based Detection Method for Chimeric Sequences

Bachelor

  • Nico Kreuder (2020): Who prefers what? Indicator OTUs for groups of fresh water samples across Europe
  • Josefa Welling (2019): Zellzyklus assoziierte Gene in Chrysophyceae
  • Luise Franke (2018): Comparative pigment analysis of Chrysophyceae
  • Sonja Amri (2018): Isolation of chrysophytes from soil samples
  • Benedict Schubert (2017): Systematische Evaluation von k-mer-basierten phylogenetischen Baumrekonstruktionsalgorithmen

Internship

  • Sarah Olberg (current)
  • Nico Kreuder (2019)
  • Marius Weltzel (2018)
  • Judith Blömer (2017)
  • Philipp Heidelbach (2013)