Young Investigator Group
Our Team
GROUP LEADER
Dr. Chien-Yun Lee
Chien-Yun obtained her PhD in Biotechnology at National Chung-Hsing University (Taiwan) in 2018. Her PhD project focused on the structure and protein interactions of PAD enzymes that catalyze a protein modification called citrullination. After learning mass spectrometry-based proteomics during her research visit in 2017, Chien-Yun continued her postdoc research on proteomics in the lab of Prof. Dr. Bernhard Küster (TUM, Germany) in 2018. In spring 2021, Chien-Yun started a young investigator group (Nachwuchsforschungsgruppe) as part of the BMBF-funded research consortium “Clinical Mass Spectrometry Center Munich – CLINSPECT-M”.
POSTDOC
Dr. Andreas Zellner
Andreas studied Biotechnology and obtained his PhD degree at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich (Germany) in 2020. His PhD thesis studied HTRA1 loss-of-function signatures in the brain vessel proteomes of CADASIL and cerebral amyloid angiopathy patients at the Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research of LMU. He then started his postdoctoral research at the University Hospital Bonn. In 2022, he joined Chien-Yun's group as a postdoc, in which he focuses on mass-spectrometry-based peptidomics including developing technologies in sample preparation on body fluids and finding peptide biomarkers in patients with neurovascular diseases.
PHD STUDENT
PHD STUDENT
Rebecca Meelker González
Rebecca studied chemistry at the University of Zaragoza for her bachelor degree (Spain). After that, she got her master's degree in medicinal chemistry at theUniversity of Southern Denmark (Denmark), where she worked on developing the workflow to enrich cysteine-containing peptides and glycopeptides in combination with DIA-MS analysis for biomarkers discovery in plasma. Since August 2021, Rebecca joins Chien-Yun’s group at TUM as a PhD student. Her project focuses on the development of biochemical enrichment tools to study citrullination in neuro-diseases.
Sophia Laposchan
Sophia studied forensic sciences during her bachelor's double degree program at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Germany) and Robert Gordon University Aberdeen (UK). During her master's study in analytical chemistry at Universiteit van Amsterdam (Netherland), Sophia conducted a research project at DSM Biotechnology Center where she investigated the electron induced dissociation (EID) in tandem mass spectrometry and its application in lipidomics. Since March 2022, Sophia joins Chien-Yun’s group as a PhD student. Her project studies the role of PAD enzymes and PTM proteomics in brain tissues from neuro-diseases.
Technical Assistant
Erik Riedel
Erik was trained as a Chemical Technical Assistant (CTA) at the Dr. Erwin-Elhardt chemistry school (Chemieschule Dr. Erwin-Elhardt) in Munich from 2020 to 2022. Following his training, he became a research assistant in a biotech company and gained experience in mass spectrometry. As of January 2024, he joined Chien-Yun's group as a research assistant supporting clinical projects and managing the lab routine.