PI

Sonja holds a Master's in Microbiology/Biochemistry from the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, and a PhD in Bioengineering from ETH Zürich. After postdoctoral work in yeast Synthetic Biology at Columbia University in New York City, Sonja joined the University of Groningen as Assistant Professor in 2019 and was promoted to Associate professor in 2024. In January 2025 Sonja joined the Bioengineering Department at Imperial College London.

Postdoctoral researcher

Margarita obtained a BSc in Microbiology at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. Subsequently, she obtained a MSc in Microbiology and Biotechnology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Margarita obtained her PhD in Molecular Bacteriology at the University Medical Center Groningen. Afterward, she worked at a strain development company where she was as an operations, wetlab, and drylab manager.

Postdoctoral researcher

Tobi obtained a BSc in Biology, and an MSc in Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Göttingen, Germany. He then gained work experience in the enzyme industry as a microbial strain engineer, before coming to Groningen for his PhD at the UMCG in 2019. Being an enthusiastic former iGEM fellow, he has been interested in applying synthetic biology to solve real world problems ever since. Right after finishing his PhD studies, he joined the group in 2024

PhD candidate

Thijs obtained his BSc in Molecular life sciences and his MSc in Biotechnology and MSc in Bioinformatics from Wageningen University. In 2022 Thijs joined the group as a PhD student.

PhD candidate

Min obtained her Master's degree in Environmental Science at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Microbiology, CAS. She then joined the group in 2021.

PhD candidate

Owen completed a Msc in Biomolecular Sciences and Chemistry at the University of Groningen. During his studies he joined the iGEM team and worked on origins of life at ESPCI Paris. He joined the group in 2023 as a PhD student.

PhD candidate

Amir completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at the University of Warwick, after which he pursued a Master’s in Systems and Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London. He then worked as an Automation Research Assistant at the London Biofoundry, where he contributed to the development of multiple automated protocols before joining the lab as a PhD student

PhD candidate

Dugagjin studied Biochemistry at Royal Holloway, University of London before obtaining his MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering with Biotechnology from Imperial College London. He then joined the Biotechnology team at Johnson Matthey in Cambridge, working primarily on Enzyme engineering projects for application in the Pharmaceutical industry