Our Amazing Team
Prof. Dr. Emma Slack
Group Leader
Emma is a British/Swiss scientist who trained in Cambridge, London, Hamilton (Ontario) and Bern before joining the ETH Zürich. She is now a Professor of Mucosal Immunology at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology, as well as at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, at the University of Oxford. She believes that difficult scientific problems, like understanding how the immune system in the intestine can influence microbiome composition and function, require a creative team of individuals collaborating closely across disciplines to solve them. These brilliant scientists need a safe, happy space to push the boundaries of knowledge, where they know that we are all there to support each other. So, while she still likes to get into the lab and get involved, she is also committed to leading a research group that reflects these values.
Elisa Cappio Barazzone
PhD Student
Elisa obtained her BSc degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Turin and her MSc degree in Molecular Biosciences from the University of Heidelberg. She then joined Emma's group for her PhD, working on a Botnar Research Centre for Child Health project aimed at developing microbiota engineering tools for the treatment of inborn errors of metabolism.
Louise Larsson
PhD Student
Louise completed her M.Sc. in Biotechnology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden before moving to Switzerland in September 2020 to pursue her PhD. As a part of the Microbiota Engineering Project, she aims to develop tools for precise engineering of the gut microflora.
Dr. Ronja Rappold
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ronja has recently finished her PhD in the Slack/Vogel group and is now a postdoctoral researcher working at the interplay of biomechanics and gastrointestinal physiology. She is applying state of the art imaging techniques to investigate the influence of gastrointestinal diseases on the mechanical properties of the surrounding gut tissue.
Dr. Tim Keys
Junior Group Leader
Tim studied in Brisbane and worked at the Institute for Glycomics on the Gold Coast (Australia) and the Hannover Medical School (Germany) before joining the Institute of Microbiology at the ETH Zürich. His research projects cover the intersections of protein biochemistry, enzyme engineering, microbial glycan biosynthesis and synthetic biology. In 2020, Tim joined the Mucosal Immunology lab as junior group leader.
Selma Aslani
Technical Specialist
Selma studied Health Sciences and Technology and joined the Mucosal Immunology group for her 2nd Research Project & Master's Thesis. After her graduation she worked as a research associate in the pharmaceutical industry. Now she re-joined the lab as a technical specialist for oral vaccine production.
Niina Ruoho
Technician
Before joining the mucosal immunology group, Niina studied environmental sciences and worked as a research technician at the University of Helsinki. She enjoys the international & collegial atmosphere of the group and is fascinated by the connection between microbiomes and health. In her freetime Niina enjoys exploring the great Swiss outdoors (as long as it’s safe) and filling her apartment with succulents.
Swapan Preet
PhD Student
Swapan studied Biotechnology at the University of Milan-Bicocca and did her ERASMUS internship at the Centre for Misfolding Diseases, University of Cambridge, where she worked as a research assistant before joining Emma Slack's lab as a PhD student. She is working on a NCCR project where she will investigate the role of intestinal antibodies in controlling the non-E.coli components of simplified microbiota.
Cheickna Diawara
PhD Student
Cheickna is a Malian/German PhD student who trained at Goethe-University Frankfurt (BSc) and at ETH Zurich (MSc). His background is in microbiology, immunology and biochemistry. He is passionate about public health in low-income countries and investigates the role of secretory IgA in combating bacterial gut infections.
Dr. Noëmi Rebecca Meier
Project Manager
Noëmi is a scientist who has worked in infectious disease research in Switzerland and abroad before joining ETH Zürich as a project manager. In her current role she is supporting the Microbiota Engineering project to facilitate research activities across this multi-investigator project.
Dr. Alice de Wouters d'Oplinter
Research Associate
Alice completed her PhD in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences in Belgium, focusing on the effects of the gut microbiota on the host metabolism. She recently joined Emma Slack’s lab as a research associate, working in collaboration with the start-up PharmaBiome to elucidate the pharmacology, safety and dosing of a novel bacterial drug candidate for reversal of dysbiosis in acute graft-versus-host disease.
Tom Kloter
PhD Student
Tom is a swiss PhD student who completed his Bachelor and Master degree at ETH Zurich. After a year of brain tumor research at the Children's Hospital Zurich, he returned to ETH to pursue his doctoral studies in the mucosal immunology group. His project focuses on elucidating the mechanism behind surface antigen focusing in bacterial infection of the gastrointestinal tract and the lung.
Suwannee Ganguillet
PhD Student
After completing a Bachelor in Biology at the University of Lausanne, Suwannee continued her studies at ETH Zurich, where she joined the Mucosal Immunology group for her Master's Thesis. After briefly exploring the industry-side of research on the microbiota in a pharmaceutical company, she is now back in the lab to conduct her Ph.D.
Dr. Elisabetta Cacace
Postdoctoral Researcher
Elisabetta Cacace is a shared postdoctoral fellow between the groups of Emma Slack and Shinichi Sunagawa at ETH Zurich since 2023. She obtained her MD and MSc from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy, and her PhD from EMBL Heidelberg. She currently focuses on host-commensal interactions, using a combination of computational and experimental approaches to study nitrogen metabolism in the human gut microbiome.
Dr. Giorgia Greter
Pioneer Fellow
Giorgia is a Swiss/Italian postdoctoral researcher who recently finished her PhD in the Slack Lab, studying microbe-host interactions in the gut. She is currently working as a Pioneer Fellow in the development of a biotech startup, Baxiva. She aims to commercialize a next-gen vaccine technology to prevent bacterial pathogenic infections.
Dr. Yagmur George Turgay
Senior Scientist
Yagmur studied biochemistry in Frankfurt, Germany, before completing his PhD at the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zürich. After having worked in a biotech company developing glycodesigned antibodies, he joined Emma’s lab as a senior scientist. In his current role he is interested in modalities of antibody-glycan interactions for the development of oral vaccines.
Dr. Markus Arnoldini
Senior Assistant
Markus wants to understand how the ecology of the gut microbiota and host physiology influence each other, and how we can use this understanding to improve health outcomes. He trained at ETH Zürich and UC San Diego in evolutionary microbiology/quantitative biology.
Dr. Sebastian Hummel
Postdoctoral Researcher
Sebastian is a trained mathematician with a BSc and MSc from TU München and a PhD from Bielefeld University. Prior to joining the lab, he worked at UC Berkeley on probability theory, population genetics, and immunology. Together with Markus Arnoldini he develops a mathematical model to identify parameter ranges that enable cooperation among gut bacteria, with the goal of informing targeted microbiota engineering.
Kateryna Vershynina
Intern
Kateryna Vershynina studied at the National Technical University of Ukraine "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" (Industrial biotechnology) and is now an intern, working with Dr. Tim Keys on the purification of glycopolysaccharides.
Dr. Annika Hausmann
SNSF Ambizione Group Leader
Annika studied Molecular Medicine in Bonn and Freiburg (DE). She trained in Zürich (CH) and Copenhagen (DK) in mucosal immunology, host-microbe interactions and epithelial repair mechanisms in intestinal inflammation. Annika is fascinated by how our intestinal mucosa manages to maintain a stable relation with commensal microbes, while protecting us against enteropathogen infections at the same time. Annika´s Epithelium-Microbiota Crosstalk subgroup joins the Mucosal Immunology lab in Fall 2024.
