Team
The lab is deliberately interdisciplinary: molecular biologists, imaging specialists and computational scientists working on the same questions.
Principal Investigator
Ozgun Gokce studies how the aging brain changes, one cell at a time. He trained at EPFL and Stanford, where he helped bring single-cell and single-molecule sequencing to neuroscience, and led a group at LMU Munich before moving to Bonn in 2023. The lab now combines spatial transcriptomics, proteomics and electron microscopy to work out how immune cells and blood vessels contribute to neurodegeneration.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Tuğberk Kaya works out what the immune system does to the aging brain. He studied molecular biology and neuroscience at Bilkent University in Ankara and completed his PhD in systemic neurosciences at LMU Munich. As co-first author of the lab's 2022 Nature Neuroscience paper he led the computational analysis that identified the interferon-responsive oligodendrocyte state, and he trains new members in single-cell and spatial workflows.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Xihui Chen trained as a clinical geneticist. Her doctoral work at the Fourth Military Medical University traced how a mutation in the FARS2 gene damages mitochondria and causes hereditary spastic paraplegia, and she has published on a range of inherited neurological and metabolic disorders. She joined the lab in 2023, based at the Department of Geriatric Psychiatry and Cognitive Disorders at University Hospital Bonn.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Karla Valdivieso works on cellular senescence and what it does to aging tissue. She did her PhD in Vienna on the relationship between senescent cells and wound healing, then a postdoc at the Mayo Clinic, and joined the lab in 2026. Here she uses spatial multi-omics to follow the lipid-immune axis in neurodegeneration and aging.
PhD Student
Cem studied molecular biology and genetics at Bilkent University in Ankara, then took a master's in molecular and cellular biology at LMU Munich. He joined the lab for his master's thesis on microglial states in demyelination. His PhD combines spatial transcriptomics with lipidomics and integrates spatial measurements with single-cell data. He generates the data and writes the analysis himself, working in mouse models and in human tissue from Alzheimer's disease, ALS and cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Outside the lab he camps, reads, and collects useless history and paleontology facts.
PhD Student
Katrin Pérez Anderson works on functional genomics in aging and neurodegeneration. She studied biomedical sciences in Reutlingen and pharmaceutical sciences at LMU Munich, graduating top of her class, and joined the lab for a master's thesis on macrophage migration inhibitory factor in Alzheimer's disease. Her PhD combines bioinformatics with experimental work: histology, MERFISH spatial transcriptomics, molecular biology, FACS and cellular assays, all with a focus on demyelination, and has contributed to papers in Nature, Nature Neuroscience and Nature Communications.
PhD Student
Zeyi Wang is a licensed physician who trained in clinical medicine at Capital Medical University in Beijing, with a master's in neurology at Beijing Anzhen Hospital. Her published work covers neuroimmunology in the clinic: myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis and stroke. She brings that clinical perspective to the lab's work on immune mechanisms in the aging brain.
PhD Student
Ali Enver Bilecen comes to neuroscience from electrical engineering and computer science, both degrees from Sabanci University in Istanbul, where he worked on deep learning for video and on transformer models that transcribe Ottoman archives. He builds scalable computational methods for atlas-scale genomics, integrating single-cell and spatial omics with microscopy and imaging.
PhD Student
Hanane Mohaouchane works where machine learning, computational biology and single-cell genomics meet. She studied computer science in Ifrane and holds an elite master's in neuroengineering from TU Munich, with stints at the Theis lab in Munich and NeuroRestore at EPFL. Her PhD, shared between the Abdullah lab at IMMEI and this lab, builds cross-organ representation learning to separate tissue-specific effects from the macrophage programs that recur wherever tissue is damaged or repaired.
PhD Student
Hannah Miserre studied integrated life sciences in Erlangen, covering biology, biomathematics and biophysics, before a master's in immunobiology at the LIMES Institute in Bonn, where the immune system struck her as a giant orchestra. She joined the lab during that master's to combine immunology with quantitative methods, mapping plaque-associated gene expression with spatial omics. Her PhD follows macrophage migration inhibitory factor through neuroinflammation and acute brain injury. Outside the lab she is usually doing sport, listening to music, or with friends.
PhD Student
Qian Liu investigates the changing cell states that drive demyelination and repair. Her PhD combines spatial transcriptomics with multimodal approaches to build a fuller picture of demyelinating disease. Equally at home at the bench and behind a computer, she develops experimental models, generates and analyses the data, and connects molecular patterns to biological mechanism. She is also the person who brings people, methods and ideas together.
PhD Student
Sudhagar Babu works on single-cell genomics of the aging and diseased brain, and is unusually fast at seeing what a new dataset is telling you. He spent four years as a research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, on oligodendrocytes in Alzheimer's models and on the spinal circuits that separate itch from pain. He is a co-author on the single-cell atlases of cognitive resilience and of the Alzheimer's brain published in Cell and Nature. He joined the lab in 2025, and gets by in five languages.
Team Assistant
Jenny runs the administrative side of the lab and manages its communication. She coordinates sample collection and transfer for the clinical studies, keeps the documentation in order, and handles budgets, third-party funding, procurement and travel. She trained as an administrative officer with the city of Meckenheim and spent six years at the Federal Network Agency in Bonn before joining the lab in January 2026. Outside work she reads, practices yin yoga, and takes photographs.