PI, Cancer Biologist and Biotech Entrepreneur
He studied medicine in Düsseldorf and Paris and did his doctoral thesis in neuroscience at the Helmholtz Jülich Research Centre and the RWTH Aachen University. He did his postdoctoral research fellowship in cancer biology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York with Dr. Alex Kentsis and Dr. Scott Armstrong. In 2018 he started his Emmy Noether Research Group at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center (ECRC) of the MDC and Charité Berlin. He is now an endowed Mildred Scheel Professor for functional genomics and the head of preclinical cancer research at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin.
Deputy PI
Bastiaan is a computational biologist whose current interests revolve around the vulnerabilities that ecDNA-amplifications introduce in tumor cells. He joined the lab in 2023. Previously, Bastiaan has worked on the development of (single-cell) sequencing methods such as RNA&DNA sequencing from the same cell and the sequencing-based determination of radial chromosome positions. His work on single-cell lineage tracing has been awarded with a Science Breakthrough of the Year 2018 award, and he has used single-cell lineage tracing to investigate zebrafish heart regeneration. All these works were done in close collaborations with wet-lab scientists. In his spare time, Bastiaan enjoys spending time with his wife and children, as well as piano playing, gardening and video gaming.
Lab Manager
After studying biotechnology at the TFH Berlin, she worked in molecular- biology- laboratories of various research groups of the ECRC/Charité.
Technician
Since training as a biology assistant, she has worked in various research groups in the field of cancer research at the MDC and Charité since 2000.
Technician
After studying in Berlin, she worked in molecular biology laboratories of various research groups at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine.
Senior Postdoc/Independent Investigator
During my PhD at Studitsky lab and postdoc at Mundlos lab, I studied how different levels of chromatin organization work together in cancer cells. We discovered a significant rearrangement in the first level of chromatin organization through a process called FACT-mediated nucleosome unfolding. Additionally, our research shed light on how supercoiling, a twisting of DNA, influences the higher-level structures of chromatin, which we explored in a study on TOP2. In our investigation of chromatin associated with extrachromosomal DNA
(ecDNA) in MYCN amplification in neuroblastoma, we identified unique features different from regular chromosomal DNA.
Currently, my interest lies in understanding how nucleosomes and DNA supercoiling play a role in the biology of cancer cells, with a specific focus on extrachromosomal DNA.
Postdoc
Andy was born in China and grew up in the United Kingdom. He obtained his Masters degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford, where he conducted his thesis under the supervision of Professor Christoph Tang. Subsequently, he moved to Dresden, Germany, where he investigated the roles of cellular senescence in salamander regeneration during his PhD. Andy joined the Henssen group as a post-doctoral researcher in May 2023. His work in our group focuses on developing inducible models of ecDNA formation, with the hope of gaining deeper insights into how ecDNAs impact tumour initiation and progression, particularly in neuroblastoma.(ecDNA) in MYCN amplification in neuroblastoma, we identified unique features different from regular chromosomal DNA.
Currently, my interest lies in understanding how nucleosomes and DNA supercoiling play a role in the biology of cancer cells, with a specific focus on extrachromosomal DNA.
Postdoc
He obtained his degree in Biology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), followed by a Postgraduate degree in Bioinformatics (UOC) and a Master’s in Genetics and Genomics from the University of Barcelona. He completed his PhD in Bioinformatics at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), focusing on the study of complex chromosomal rearrangements in cancer, particularly characterizing the role of extrachromosomal circular DNA as a genome remodeler. In the Henssen lab, his research now focuses on studying mutational signatures associated with large genomic rearrangements across various cancer types.
PhD student
(jointly supervised with Jan-Philipp Junker, BIMSB)
PhD student
Finnja holds a bachelor and master degree in Bioinformatics from the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Copenhagen, respectively.
Within different projects she worked with single-cell RNA and ATAC data, velocity predictions and spatial transcriptomics data. Her master thesis focused on the identification of cell type-specific open chromatin regions based on single-cell profiling of human hypothalamus tissue.
Finnja joined the Henssen lab in January 2024 as part of the CompCancer Graduate program and will investigate structural features of ecDNA.
PhD student
She did her Integrated bachelor and master degree in biotechnology at the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. Her master thesis focused on designing a highly multiplexed Nanopore sequencing protocol for the 16S rRNA gene. As a Staff Scientist at ArgenTAG Company, she drove innovation, contributing significantly to the development of a pioneering native long-read single-cell RNA-seq solution. Martina’s current project focuses on the study of the evolution and integration of ecDNAs in neuroblastoma to improve clinical evaluation and diagnostics for personalized medicine.
PhD student
Roshni holds a Bachelor's in Computer Science & Engineering and a Master's in Computational Molecular Biology. She began her bioinformatics career at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and subsequently developed software for cancer genomics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the Charité as part of the CompCancer and CRC1588 (Neuroblastoma Evolution) graduate schools. Since joining the Henssen Lab in 2025, her research focuses on the evolution of extrachromosomal DNA.
PhD student
Varvara holds a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology and a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Thessaly, Greece. During her master’s project, she studied the regulation of lncRNAs by cell-lineage regulators in gastric cancer. As an intern in the Mundlos lab at the MPIMG, she investigated the evolution of the gene regulatory landscape between mouse and ascidians. Both projects inspired her to focus on gene regulation. Now Varvara would like to understand how ecDNA re-integration affects gene regulation.
Masters student
Nadine holds a Bachelor's degree in Biology from Freie Universität Berlin. During her bachelor's thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, she investigated the role of nucleoli and the dynamics of gene expression during neurogenesis. She is currently pursuing her master's thesis in our lab, where she is particularly interested in the role of the SMC5/6 complex in ecDNA biology.
MD student
David is a medical student at Charité- Universitätsmedizin Berlin and has joined the lab in September 2024. Within the scope of his medical thesis, David has been working on image analysis pipelines to quantify intercellular ecDNA localisation.
MD student
Florian is a medical student at Charité with a passion for both pediatric oncology and computational biology. In concert with these interests, his research focuses on computationally deciphering the epigenetic landscape of extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA).
MD/PhD student
He is interested in the role of ecDNA in neuroblastoma, focusing on the computational analysis of genomics data.
Visiting PhD student
Alessia holds a Bachelor degree in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Cagliari and a Master's degree in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Bologna, during which she began working on non-coding RNAs in cancer. She is currently a PhD student in Oncology, Hematology and Pathology at the University of Bologna, and is joining the lab as a visiting PhD student. Alessia's current project focuses on the functional transfer of ecDNA via extracellular vesicles.