Our team
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Jana Jeschke, PhD
Group Leader
Jana Jeschke studied Molecular Medicine at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (2003-2008), and performed her PhD research at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA (2008-2013), in the groups of Prof. Nita Ahuja and Prof. Jim Herman and in collaboration with Prof. Baylin. During this time, she identified and functionally characterized aberrantly DNA methylated genes in breast cancer and assessed them as novel biomarkers.
In 2013, Jana moved to Belgium to start a postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels. Under the supervision of her lead mentor. Prof. Fuks and the breast cancer expert Prof. Sotiriou, she explored changes of various epigenetic modifications on DNA and RNA in breast and other cancers and the clinical relevance of these aberrations for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Her most notable works include the development of an epigenetic immune signature that predicts survival and response to chemotherapy in breast cancer (JCI 2017) and the discovery of m6A mRNA methylation changes in breast cancer and their impact on pathways driving cancer progression and therapy resistance (Nature Cancer 2021). Jana was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) in 2014.
In 2022, Jana obtained the mandate of Chercheuse Qualifiée (Associate Professor) from the FNRS to start her own research group at ULB focusing on applied cancer epigenomics and epitranscriptomics. Her group is establishing new and cutting-edge technologies (e.g. Nanopore sequencing) for the mapping of DNA and RNA modifications in tumor biopsies as well as developing innovative bioinformatics tools for the analysis of epigenome/epitranscriptome maps. For her ground breaking research, Jana was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2023.
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Dídac Jiménez Sánchez
PhD Student
Dídac studied biosystems engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia where he developed an interest in genetics and programming. He carried out his bachelor's thesis at the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics, about melon QTL's and CRISPR/Cas9. After that, he decided that he wanted to have a career in research and studied a master's degree in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics at the Open University of Catalonia, where he carried out a master's thesis on the benchmarking of single-cell RNA sequencing preprocessing. With the master finished, he started a PhD at the ACEE lab with the goal to study the role of epitranscriptomics in tumor-associated neutrophils in lung cancer.
Outside the office, he is passionate about swing dancing, bouldering and reading, among other things.
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Brendan Beahan
PhD Student
After working as an English Teacher in Tokyo and then as a data analyst for an online food-ordering software company, Brendan decided to pursue his Master in Bioinformatics at KU Leuven. During the master he worked on many different bioinformatics projects, including a CNN for classifying amyloid-beta plaques in Alzheimer's patients and a master's thesis investigating the molecular dynamics of phage-induced lysine acetylations. Brendan’s chief aim is to work on challenging scientific problems with direct applications to human health, which is in large part why he was excited to begin his work within the Jeschke Lab investigating the application of nanopore technology to better understand m6A dysregulation in breast cancer.
When not working at the lab, Brendan enjoys jogging (especially at park cinquantenaire!), weightlifting and watching films.
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Milena Pierzchalska
Master Student
Milena is a master student in Biomedical Sciences. She joined the lab for her master thesis on the benchmarking of bioinformatics tools for the detection of RNA modifications from Oxford Nanopore Direct RNA Sequencing data.
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You?
PhD Student
More info to come...
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You?
Lab Technician
Joining soon!