Team

Dr. Kristina Haslinger

Principle Investigator/ Assistant Professor

Kristina studied Biology in Würzburg, Germany and obtained her PhD in 2014 from Heidelberg university. She did her postdoctoral training in Kristala Prather’s lab at MIT and started her position in Groningen in February 2020. When her eyes aren’t glued to protein structures or scientific literature, she enjoys hiking and biking with her family.

Dr. Riccardo Iacovelli

Postdoctoral Researcher

Riccardo studied Industrial Biotechnology in Rome, Italy. He later joined the Molecular Microbiology department at the University of Groningen for his PhD, where he worked on the characterization and engineering of nonribosomal peptide synthetases. After successfully defending his thesis in 2021, he joined the Haslinger lab to work on the heterologous expression of biosynthetic gene clusters from lichenized fungi. In his free time, he enjoys outdoor activities, sports, and traveling.

Ting He

PhD candidate

Ting earned her Master’s Degrees in Chemistry of Chinese Materia Medica from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in China. She joined the Department of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Biology as a PhD student in 2020, with her research interests focusing on the engineering of microbial cell factories for the production of natural products with pharmaceutical applications. Research interests: Analytical chemistry, Metabolomics, Natural product characterization

Xiao Li

PhD candidate

Xiao obtained her B.Sc. in Chinese Materia Medica (2014-2018) and M.Sc. in Chemistry of Chinese Materia Medica (2018-2021) at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in China, where she worked on structural characterization and biological activity evaluation of polysaccharides and secondary metabolites isolated from medicinal plants. In July 2022, she joined the Haslinger group to explore potential ways to activate biosynthetic gene clusters of endophytic fungi from medicinal plants to produce natural products with pharmaceutical values.

Bo Peng

PhD candidate

Bo Peng is a PhD Student in the Department of Chemical & Pharmaceutical Biology from 2020. His research interest is in biosynthesis of natural products by constructing recombinant pathways in microbial cell factories. Bo’s hobbies are hiking, playing basketball and working out in his leisure time.

Nika Sokolova

PhD candidate

Nika obtained her B.Sc. in Molecular Biotechnology at Odesa National Mechnikov University in Ukraine. Shortly after, she was awarded the Holland-High Potential Scholarship to pursue the Biobased Materials M.Sc. programme at Maastricht University (2018-2020), where she got training in organic chemistry, polymer science and sustainability. For her M.Sc. thesis, Nika worked on recombinant production of spider silk proteins in tobacco and graduated cum laude. In November 2020, Nika joined the Haslinger group at RuG to work on computational and experimental de-orphanization of fungal enzymes.