Team

Dr. Enrico Bertolini

Post-doctoral researcher

Enrico obtained his bachelor and master degree from the University of Padua. For his master thesis he moved to the University of Leicester where he studied the diapause of Drosophila melanogaster in the lab of Bambos Kyriacou. He then joined the group of Charlotte Förster at the University of Würzburg where he studied and characterized the circadian clock of selected non-model insect species. He obtained his PhD in 2018 and continued with a project on the anatomical and functional characterization of the dorsal clock neurons of D. melanogaster. Enrico joined the lab in January 2021 to work on the evolution of gustatory preference. He is supported by a DFG Walter Benjamin fellowship.

 

Dr. Thomas Auer

Group leader

 

Justine Pascual

Lab Manager

Justine received her master’s degree in Bioengineering from the University of Toulouse, France. After moving to Switzerland, she started working in the laboratory of Fisun Hamaratoglu at the CIG, UNIL on growth control and patterning in Drosophila. Then, she joined Etienne Meylan at the EPFL to work on the impact of microenvironment and metabolism on tumor development in lung cancer. She joined our team in May 2021 to explore gustatory circuit evolution in Drosophila species.

 

Dr. Noemi Sgammeglia

Lab Manager

Noemi received her Master degree from the University of Turin in April 2017. For her master thesis, she moved to The Netherlands and joined an Erasmus Traineeship program to study the epigenetic regulation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In October 2018, she joined the University of Friboug as a PhD candidate in Simon Sprecher group. During her PhD, she studied Learning and Memory in Drosophila melanogaster, performing behavioural tests and molecular experiments to characterize different phases of memory consolidation. Following her doctoral defense, she joined an innovative start-up, Scaylite, to support precision medicine and acquiring skills in project management and business development. In August 2024, she joined our team to support our research in taste processing among Drosophila species.