At the heart of our collaborative efforts is a commitment to respectful treatment, open discussions, and a lab environment that not only fosters personal and professional development but also fuels our scientific drive. We recognize the crucial balance between work and personal life, understanding that our families and hobbies contribute to our well-being and overall performance in advancing groundbreaking research. Together, anchored in these principles, we strive to make significant contributions to the scientific community, delving into fundamental principles that govern the behavior of muscle stem cells, fostering proper development and health of organisms.
Josephine Bageritz
Group leader
Josy has a long-standing interest in cell and tissue heterogeneity. At the beginning of 2021, she started her own group at the Centre for Organismal Studies to explore together with her team the heterogenous nature of muscle stem cell niches using Drosophila as model system.
- +49 6221 54 5612
- josephine.bageritz@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
Maria Jelena Musillo
PhD student
Maria did her B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the TU Darmstadt, before she joined the lab in August 2021. She is interested in Wnt pathway specificity in the muscle stem cell niche.
- +49 6221 54 6406
- maria.musillo@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
Natalja Engel
Technical Assistant
Natalja is at COS since 2013 and joined our team in March 2021. She takes care of general lab organization and helps to advance the various projects of the lab.
- +49 6221 54 6406
- natalia.engel@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
Verena Holzwarth
Technical Assistant
Verena joined our team in November 2021 working part time. She helps with general lab organization tasks and also assists and provides technical support with single-cell RNAseq experiments.
- +49 6221 546406
- verena.holzwarth@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
Magdalena Schlotter
Technical Assistant (officially retired)
Magdalena is officially retired, but she lends us her expertise in the field of molecular biology on occasion, offering valuable guidance and support.
Laura Schütze
Researcher
Laura joined the lab in July 2023 for her Master's thesis in developmental and stem cell biology, which she completed in April 2024. She now supports us as a researcher for wet lab experiments and computational analyses of Wnt pathway heterogeneity in the muscle stem cell niche.
- laura.schuetze@stud.uni-heidelberg.de
Anna Geißdorf
Hiwi student
Anna, a B.Sc student in Biosciences at the University of Heidelberg, joined the lab in December 2023 as a HiWi to actively participate in our ongoing projects and learn general lab procedures. Her project focuses on investigating a novel gene associated with the Wnt signaling pathway in muscle stem cell biology.
- anna.geissdorf@stud.uni-heidelberg.de
B. Gideon Bergheim
Postdoc
Gideon joined the lab as a postdoc in January 2024. He is our bioinformatician and develops computational tools for image analysis, spatial single cell transcriptomics and an automated Drosophila flight assay to screen for muscle development genes.
- gideon.bergheim@cos.uni-heidelberg.de
Bilyana Popova
Bachelor student
Bilyana is currently doing her B.Sc. in Biology at the University of Heidelberg and joined the lab in March 2024 for a practical. Soon she will also be working on her Bachelor's thesis with us.
- bilyana.popova@stud.uni-heidelberg.de
Former Team Members
Lara Roth, Bachelor and Hiwi student from April 2023 to March 2024 – currently applying for Master programmes
Iva Verbanac, Hiwi student from June 2023 to December 2023 – Master student at Heidelberg University
Nika Goršek, Master student and Hiwi from 2022 to spring 2023 – PhD student at EPFL (Prof. D’Angelo)
Livia Chavent, Erasmus student in 2022 – Master student University of Paris, France