HT Seminars: Connecting Discoveries

Prisca Liberali trained as a physical organic chemist before completing her PhD in molecular cell biology at the Mario Negri Sud Institute. After developing single-cell methods during her postdoc at ETH, she became a Group Leader at the FMI and a Professor at ETH (D-BSSE). Her lab studies self-organization in collective cell behaviours, combining quantitative approaches with advanced imaging, including light-sheet and high-throughput methods, to investigate organoid development. She is a recipient of ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants, the EMBO Gold Medal, and the Suffrage Science Award.

Visit Prisca Liberali lab webpage

HT host: Marino Zerial

Erin Schuman (born 1963, California) trained at USC, Princeton and Stanford, joined the Caltech Biology Faculty in 1993 and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from 1997 to 2009. In 2009, she co-founded the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt. She is a member of EMBO and multiple national academies and has received major international prizes, including the Brain Prize and the HFSP Nakasone Prize (2026). Her research focuses on local protein synthesis and degradation at neuronal synapses, elucidating how decentralised gene expression enables synaptic plasticity.

Visit Erin Schuman lab webpage

HT host: Ivano Legnini

Hans Clevers, MD, PhD, is Professor of Molecular Genetics at Utrecht University and a leading figure in cell biology, molecular signalling and stem cell research. He elucidated key components of the Wnt pathway and identified LGR5 as an intestinal stem cell marker, pioneering organoid technology—3D in vitro models that mimic human organs and have transformed biomedical research. Trained in Utrecht, he has held leadership roles at the Hubrecht Institute, the Royal Netherlands Academy and the Princess Máxima Center. Since 2022, he has led Roche’s pRED and founded the Institute of Human Biology in Basel.

Visit Hans Clevers lab webpage

HT host: Cecilia Reyneri

Soumya Raychaudhuri is the Walbert Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, an Institute Member at the Broad Institute, and Director of the Center for Data Sciences at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also practices as a rheumatologist. His laboratory integrates computational biology, human immunology and genetic engineering to elucidate mechanisms of autoimmune disease. His research focuses on the genetics and functional genomics of rheumatoid arthritis, tuberculosis and type 1 diabetes, developing methods to map genetic associations to causal variants and cell-state-specific effects. He has advanced single-cell statistical and functional genomics approaches to study CD4+ T cells and fibroblasts in inflammation. Trained at SUNY Buffalo and Stanford, he has received major clinical research awards and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Visit Soumya Raychaudhuri webpage

HT host: Nicole Soranzo

Elena Conti is a structural biologist and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. Elena’s group uses biochemical and structural approaches to understand how our cells monitor, transport, and degrade mRNA, particularly focusing on the molecular mechanisms that recognize and eliminate defective or unneeded transcripts. In recognition of her work, Conti has received several awards and has also been elected as a member to multiple prestigious societies, including the Accademia dei Lincei, the UK Royal Society and the US National Academy of Science.

Visit Elena Conti lab webpage

HT host: Ana Casañal

Narry Kim is Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University and founding Director of the RNA Research Center at the Institute for Basic Science. Trained at Seoul National University, the University of Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania, she established her laboratory in 2001 to study RNA biology. Her work has been seminal in defining microRNA pathways, including the identification and mechanistic characterisation of DROSHA, and in revealing how noncanonical RNA tailing regulates microRNAs, mRNAs and viral RNAs. More recently, her research has elucidated cellular pathways governing the delivery and control of mRNA therapeutics. She has received major international honours, including the L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Award, and is a member of KAS, the US National Academy of Sciences, EMBO and the Royal Society.

Visit Narry Kim lab webpage

HT host: Ivano Legnini

Matthias Lutolf is a Professor at the Institute of Bioengineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. He studied materials engineering and obtained his PhD in biomedical engineering at ETH Zurich, followed by postdoctoral research at Stanford University. In 2007, he established his own laboratory at EPFL, where he later served as Director of the Institute of Bioengineering from 2014 to 2018. In addition to his academic role, Lutolf is the Founding Director of Roche’s Institute of Human Biology (IHB), where he leads the Translational Bioengineering Department. His research focuses on developing advanced bioengineering strategies to guide stem cell self-organization and create more reproducible, physiologically relevant organoids. These next-generation organoid systems are accelerating early drug development and transforming how human biology and disease can be studied in vitro. Lutolf’s work has been featured in leading journals such as Nature and Science, and his innovations have spurred the development of commercial technologies and biotech startups focused on personalized medicine and organoid-based assays.

Visit Matthias Lutolf webpage

HT host: Malina Karen Iwanski