Fellows

Mikrobiota und Naturstoffe

Lilu Liu

"Characterization of bioactive natural products from human microbiota and myxobacteria"

Lilu studied Food Quality and Safety from 2016-2020 at Northeast Agricultural University, China. She obtained her master degree in Microbiology and Biochemical Pharmacy from Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2023. From 2024, she worked as a PhD student at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland in the department of Microbial Natural Products under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Rolf Müller. Lilu’s research interest is to identify and characterize bioactive natural products for potential pharmaceutical application.

Pathoblocker als neuartige Antiinfektiva

Angeliki Vgenopoulou

“Design and synthesis of novel inhibitors of LasB”

Angeliki earned her Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Patras (UoP), Greece, specialising in organic synthesis and the synthesis of small molecules. During her Erasmus exchange at Cardiff University, she worked in the field of Green Chemistry. She then completed her Master’s degree in Medicinal Chemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy (UoP), where her thesis focused on newly synthesised artemisinin hybrids with triazole linkers. During her Erasmus+ traineeship at HIPS, she worked on the synthesis of novel IspD inhibitors targeting the MEP pathway. Since September 2023, Angeliki has been pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Anna Hirsch. Her research focuses on the design and synthesis of novel elastase B inhibitors. During her PhD, she also undertook a secondment at BioSolveIT to expand on her computational chemistry experience and she completed a two-month research stay at the H3D Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa where she worked on the synthesis of novel antimalarials.

Arzneimittelabgabe und biologische Barrieren

Marlon Gancino

"Extracellular vesicles as pathobiochemical regulators and antibacterial delivery vehicles"

Marlon Gancino is a biomedical engineer who graduated from Yachay Tech University, Ecuador, in February 2020. During his undergraduate studies, he conducted his thesis research in nanomedicine at the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the University of Concepción, Chile. In 2021, Marlon joined, as a scholarship holder, the Erasmus Mundus Master's program Nanomedicine for Drug Delivery, coordinated by Université Paris Cité, France. During the program, he specialized in strategies for developing nanomedicines for non-clinical applications. In 2023, he completed his master's degree with a thesis on vaccine development conducted at Virometix AG, a clinical stage biotech company based in Zurich, Switzerland. Currently, Marlon is pursuing a PhD as a fellow of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie doctoral program TALENTS in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Saarland University, Germany. His research focuses on drug delivery and biological barriers, with particular emphasis on the role of extracellular vesicles in host–pathogen communication. His scientific interests lie in advancing the clinical translation of nanomedicines and biopharmaceutical technologies to address unmet medical needs. He is especially interested in bridging research and therapeutic innovation, with a long-term ambition of helping shape the future direction of the pharmaceutical industry.

Walaa M. Metwally Abdelghany

“Next-generation editing and interventional reshaping of skin microbiota in health and disease – paving the way to the postantibiotic era in medicine"

Walaa studied Pharmacy at Alexandria University in Egypt, where she completed her master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in June 2023. Since October 2023, she has been a PhD student at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland in the Department of Drug Delivery Across Biological Barriers of Prof. Claus-Michael Lehr. Her areas of interest in research are biomedical applications with a focus on 3D printing technology as well as the development of novel delivery systems for combating infectious diseases. She is currently working on the reconstruction of reliable in vitro skin models aiming to replace animal experimentation.