Postdoc
Dr. Manuel Pérez Soto
Manuel joined our group in June 2025 at ETH Zürich. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biology at the University of Granada in 2018, and then joined the group of Prof. Salvador Tomas at Birkbeck at University of London (UK) as an Associate Research Fellow. After his Master's degree in Biotechnology, Manuel completed a PhD in Pharmacy (2025) at the Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine in Granada (Spain) in Dr. Morales-Sanchez's group. manuel.perez@tum.de
Lab Manager
Ramona Heinzl
Ramona joined the group in February 2026. She completed her training as a chemical laboratory technician at TUM in 2019 and worked in Urban Water Systems Engineering before joining the TUM training center in 2020. There, she was a member of the examination committee and was responsible for supervising laboratory technician apprentices. As Lab Manager, Ramona ensures a safe and productive research environment by overseeing daily operations, infrastructure, and procurement while providing technical and workflow support to researchers and students. ramona.heinzl@tum.de
PhD Candidates
Marta Vergara Torres
Marta joined our group in May 2026 as a PhD student. After completing a Bachelor’s in Biology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, she completed an interuniversity Master’s in Molecular Biology in Belgium. During that time, she completed her master's thesis on enzyme engineering at the Centre for Synthetic Biology in Ghent. After an Erasmus internship at Leipzig’s Schoeder-Meiler, she now works on disordered proteins to enhance enzyme stability and activity in our lab. marta.vergara@tum.de
Beatriz Pasero
Beatriz joined our group in May 2026 as a visiting PhD student. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Biology from the Complutense University of Madrid in 2021, completing her Bachelor's thesis in Prof. Isabel de la Mata’s group. After that, she joined PlantLab in Pisa (Italy) for a Master’s thesis, completing her Master’s degree in Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology. She then began her PhD in 2023 at CIB-CSIC in the lab of Prof. Jesús Miguel Sanz. beatriz.pasero@tum.de
Students
Leon Deininger
Leon joined the group in March 2026 as a Master’s student in Biochemistry. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Ulm University, completing a thesis on the biotechnological optimization of the TEV protease in Prof. Fändrich’s group. After a six-month internship at Roche in downstream processing, he began his Master’s thesis on designing stable fusion proteins for continuous flow chemistry to enhance catalyst stability and performance. leon.deininger@tum.de
Janika Schweikert
Janika joined the group in June 2026. Among other internships, she completed a research internship at the Technical University of Munich in the group of Prof. Dr. Matthias Feige on cytokine expression. In June, she began her Bachelor’s thesis on a continuous-flow multi-enzyme cascade for the synthesis of a structural motif for pharmaceuticals.
Administrative Assistant
Alumni
2026
Luisa Krausch (Research internship)
Raúl Campos del Barrio (Visiting student)