PEOPLE

Nikolaus Mandlburger, BSc

Master student

nikolaus.mandlburger@ccri.at
+43 1 40470 4034

Nikolaus has obtained his bachelor degree in the field of microbiology and genetics at the University of Vienna, before starting the master programs genetics and developmental biology as well as bioinformatics. In 2021 he joined the Tomazou lab for his bioinformatics master thesis. In his project, he strives to fruitfully incorporate different kinds of data into a framework for risk stratification of Ewing sarcoma patients based on liquid biopsies. In his free time he enjoys sailing, making music and gardening.

Daria Pająk, MSc

peter.peneder@ccri.at
+43 1 40470 4034

Peter did his bachelor's in microbiology and genetics before switching to bioinformatics for his master's. After an exchange semester at the University of Amsterdam, where he worked on finding novel B- and T-cell receptor alleles, he joined the lab in 2018 for his master thesis.

Peter is developing and applying bioinformatic methods and machine learning approaches to learn more about how pediatric cancers arise and how to use liquid biopsies to improve their identification, detection, and monitoring. Peter is especially interested in fragmentomics, computational methods for single-cell data analysis, and machine learning. Currently, he is a visiting PhD student at the Marioni lab at the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. In his free time, he enjoys reading good books, bouldering, running, and discussions about philosophy.

Jason Sims, PhD

Staff Scientist

jason.sims@ccri.at
+43 1 40470 4014

Jason did his Bachelor and Master studies at the University of Trieste and the Open University of Cambridge studying chromosomal translocations and genome adaptations. For his PhD he moved to the University of Vienna to study the control of meiotic recombination at the repetitive ribosomal DNA (rDNA) region. He continued to study the rDNA focusing on the ribosomal RNA and tissue specific ribosomal variants during his PostDocs at the University of Vienna and the University of Hamburg.

In the Tomazou group his main project will focus on the determination of ribosomal variants as drivers for cancerogenesis and drug resistance in the context of Ewing Sarcoma.

Jason spends his free time pursuing various family activities with his son and wife. He also enjoys cooking and skiing.

Marcus obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Molecular Biotechnology. His scientific journey took him to a Basel-based start-up, BioVersys, where he focused on identifying new drug targets in antibiotic resistance mechanisms, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he investigated the mode of action of a novel cancer vulnerability. The project he has recently embarked on for his PhD focuses on a functional dissection of the dysregulated enhancer landscape in Ewing sarcoma, which allows him to pursue his fascination for single cell technologies and other next generation sequencing applications. In his leisure time he fancies himself a cinema lover and enjoys reading books and graphic novels as well as practicing different kinds of sport.