My PhD

During the first 3 years of my University studies in Belgium, I never planned to go into real research. But during my diploma thesis at the Genk Institute for Fertility Technology in the final year of my studies, I realised this was what I wanted to do next. Via via I read an application for a PhD position in Spain on the web, and after thinking it through a few days, I decided to give it a go. Reading the short description fo the research really sounded interesting to me. Two weeks later I took a flight to Barcelona and had my interview. 2 months later I started working with Dr. Peter Askjaer at the Barcelona Science Parc. We were located in Dr. Cayetano Gonzalez’s lab. He works with flies and cell cultures whilst me and Peter use Caenorhabditis Elegans as animal model system. C. elegans is a tiny little worm, the adults are about 1 mm in length so with good eyes you will manage to just about see them. We always use binoculars to look at them at a magnification. I started with a project on a protein called VRK-1, and described its role in nuclear envelope formation in early embryos. After exactly 2 years, in January 2007, Peter got his own brand new lab at the Andalusan Centre for Developmental Biology in Seville. But instead of moving with him in January I got accepted to do a short term visit to Prof. Dr. Paul Sternberg’s lab at the California Institute for Technology in Pasadena, LA, in the US. Reason for this was a slight change in my reearch focus: I started working on the post-embryonic function of VRK-1 and wanted to learn more about development of reproductive structures in C. elegans in Paul’s lab. I was in Pasadena untill halfway April, and then moved to Seville to Peters lab in May. And thats where I currently am at. Peter has now got a second PhD student, Eduardo Rodenas. Eduardo does research on nucleoporins in C. elegans. If I put his picture on my weblog he will attract too many girls to my website, so I wont do that. However, let me say I’m very glad Peter chose Edu to work with us as he is doing a great job in the lab and makes a great friend also outside our little worm paradise (this better all promise me more sushi-lunches!). We now also have a part-time technician, Christina, who keeps our lab running smoothly.



Peter shares the lab with Dr. Antonio Miranda. Antonio has one PhD student, Briseida, from Mexico. I hope they will stay with us a long time, as together we make a really nice lab! So thats the ‘hard-core’, but we also have temporary students, 2 girls both named Maria. You can find more info about our lab and about the institute in general on www.CABD.com. The picture above shows Peter’s current group, although Maria is not on there yet. Left is Christina, next to that Edu who in the mean time had a little scissors accident, then me and then Peter.