Team Bio

We are scientists who are interested in understanding the genetic basis of why we look the way we look. In our day jobs we study genetics, developmental processes and malformations in humans, mice and even moles, and try to understand to what extent traits are hardwired in the DNA. We all have PhDs in biology, and we've collaborated on 'formal' research projects in the past.

We love our work, but sometimes we hear that what we do is far removed from the 'real world'. This is one of the reasons, why this project is so special to us: when we first learned about LilBub we saw this adorable little cat, and we also saw a connection to our research.

Therefore, apart from finding the mutation underlying LilBub's condition, we would like to show that genetics is not crazy and complicated, but something that's close to everyone and anyone who cares to get their head around it.

You can read more about us and our motivation to work on this project on the LilBubome blog page.





We have two experienced specialists that will help us with analysing the genome and interpreting the results:

Prof. Leslie Lyons - cat geneticists who heads the awesome 99 cat lives initiative which we encourage you to check out

Prof. Uwe Kornak - human geneticists who is (among other things specialist for inborn bone disorders

Daniel M. Ibrahim

I'm a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin and study the genetic basis of developmental disorders in humans, which often affect only very few patients. The cat in the picture is Castro.



Scientifically, I care most about gene regulation, which means why any given gene is activated (or repressed) only in certain cells and tissues. Misregulation of genes is the molecular basis for many developmental disorders and changes in gene regulation are probably a major driving force of evolution.



If you (losely) connect these two points, you see how they drove me to experiment.com when I first learnt about LilBub.

I couldn't help but think of how similar her case is to patients born with a rare disease, only that she's a cat.



Uschi Symmons

I'm a molecular biologist, and my main interest is to understand how the instructions in our DNA determine the way we look. I've always approached this question by taking human disease or development as a starting point and then trying to figure out what the molecular causes are. Using this approach I've worked on a rare heritable disorder (Pseudoxanthoma elasticum) during my master thesis in Hungary. Later, for my PhD, I studied the origin of polydactyly (when people have more than 5 fingers) at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Currently, I am working on imaging methods to count individual RNA molecules in mouse tissues, to get a better estimate of how variable gene expression is.



Apart from my research I'm also very interested in science outreach and engagement. During my PhD I helped out in lab practicals for high-school students and teachers. I translate TED (popular science) talks into Hungarian (my native language). I write a blog about sciency things and life in academia for anyone who's interested in those topics. And I'm really excited about the Lil Bub project!

Darío G Lupiáñez

I am a postdoctoral researcher working at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. My main scientific interest is to understand the nuclear organization of the genome and how its variations are related to evolution and disease. Besides a work, I consider science as my hobby.

