People

Current members and alumni of the lab.

18members
9PhD students
11doctorates completed
77alumni
2junior research groups
78peer-reviewed publications

Prof. Dr. Marc Erhardt

Principal investigator. Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens.

CV and profile · Fellow lab at the MPUSP · E-mail

Junior research groups

Two independent junior research groups have emerged from the lab. Both are located at the Institute of Biology.

Molecular Infection Microbiology
Dr. Philipp Popp
Einstein Independent Researcher group leader since 2026; joined the lab in 2020. The group studies how the anti-phage defence systems of bacteria act together in single cells.
molinfect.hu-berlin.de
Microbial Synthetic Biology
Dr. Gita Naseri
Emmy Noether group leader since 2024; joined the lab in 2021. The group develops synthetic biology tools for bacteria, yeast and fungi and applies them in metabolic engineering.
synbio.hu-berlin.de

Scientists

Dr. Caroline Kühne
Lab manager, since 2018
E-mail
Dr. Murat Tugrul
Postdoc, since 2025
Mechanisms of flagellar regulation, assembly and function
E-mail

PhD students

Mario Delgadillo-Guevara
PhD student, since 2022
Secretion pathway of conjugative plasmids
E-mail
Shubha Udupa
PhD student (with the University of Melbourne), since 2023
Secretion pathway of conjugative plasmids
E-mail
Kristin Funke
PhD student, since 2023
Mechanisms of flagellar regulation, assembly and function
E-mail
Hannah Grabietz
PhD student, since 2023
Substrate targeting to the injectisome
E-mail
Hannah Raasch
PhD student, since 2023
Single-cell dynamics of virulence gene expression
E-mail
Maximilian Lehmann
PhD student, since 2023
Exit strategies of intracellular Salmonella
E-mail
Min Meijer
PhD student, since 2024
Engineering of the flagellar secretion system for protein production
E-mail
Lasse Hallenga
PhD student, since 2025
Development of image analysis tools
E-mail
Adhvaidhi Kuntran
PhD student, since 2025
Sensing of phage infection by Zorya
E-mail

Students

Sarah Voß
Student assistant and Master student, since 2024
Ronya Kraus
Student assistant and Bachelor student, since 2024
Ottilie Zachhuber
Student assistant and Bachelor student, since 2025

Technical and administrative staff

Felicitas Reindl
Secretary, since 2018
E-mail
Heidi Landmesser
Technical assistant, since 2017
E-mail
Raúl Trepel-Washington
Technical assistant, since 2022
E-mail

Alumni

Postdocs

2020 – 2026Dr. Philipp PoppNow: Einstein Independent Researcher group leader, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2021 – 2024Dr. Gita NaseriNow: Emmy Noether group leader, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2023 – 2025Dr. Lenka Füle
2023 – 2025Dr. Eugen Kaganovitch
2023 – 2024Dr. Manuel HalteNow: EMBO postdoctoral fellow, University of Oxford
2020 – 2023Dr. Andreas Latoscha
2014 – 2018Dr. Thibaud RenaultNow: CNRS researcher with his own group, ARNA laboratory, Université de Bordeaux
2017 – 2018Dr. Sebastian Felgner
2017Dr. Julia Horstmann
2014 – 2016Dr. Fabio Pisano
2014 – 2015Dr. Ayad Amer

Staff scientists and project coordination

2024 – 2025Dr. Mihaela Pruteanu (project coordinator)Now: Scientific Coordinator, Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens
2021 – 2024Julia Schmidt (staff scientist)
2013 – 2017Imke Spöring (staff scientist)

PhD students

2021 – 2026Dr. María José Giralt Zúñiga
2021 – 2026Dr. Rosa Einenkel
2018 – 2025Dr. Doaa Saleh
2018 – 2023Dr. Svenja Fischer (née Hüsing)
2018 – 2022Dr. Manuel Halte
2016 – 2020Dr. Alina GuseThen: postdoc at Harvard University. Now: quality assurance in the food industry
2014 – 2018Dr. Abilash Chakravarthy Durai RajThen: postdoc in Munich
2013 – 2017Dr. Julia Horstmann
2013 – 2017Dr. Florian Fabiani
2013 – 2017Dr. Caroline Kühne
2013 – 2016Dr. Sebastian Felgner (co-supervised with Siegfried Weiss)