People

Jacob Corn is the Professor of Genome Biology at ETH Zürich. His research aims to bring about the end of genetic disease through the development and application of next-generation genome editing technologies. Jacob is committed to the improvement of human health through the fundamental understanding of disease mechanisms. Over the last fifteen years he has bridged academia and industry, working in therapeutic areas that include infectious disease, neurobiology, and oncology. His graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley redefined our understanding of DNA replication and his postdoctoral work at the University of Washington computationally designed protein inhibitors from scratch. Jacob was a group leader at Genentech where he discovered biological mechanisms for challenging therapeutic targets. Prior to joining ETHZ, Jacob was the founding Scientific Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute and faculty at UC Berkeley. In his spare time, Jacob enjoys long backpacking trips and rock climbing

You can find Jacob on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Luca received his Master’s degree in Biological Chemistry from the ETH Zürich in 2024. In his Master thesis he was working with Dr. Zacharias Kontarakis on establishing a pipeline for in-depth investigation of transcriptional adaptation in mammalian cells. Luca joined the Corn Lab as a Research Assistant in July 2024; his research interests are focused on the application of the gene editing tool CRISPR to further the understanding of gene expression and the possible influence on the medical field.

Kinga received her Phd in Biology/Autoimmune diseases from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 2012, working with Dr. Cassian Sitaru and Stefan Martin PhD on autoimmune skin diseases, focusing on autoantibody-mediated pathomechanisms. During her postdoc in Basel (Switzerland), she continued her research in complement-involved autoimmune pathomechanisms in SLE. Kinga joined the Corn lab as a laboratory manager and technical assistant in May 2019.

Jan received his Master´s degree in Immunology from Charles University in 2022, working with Dr. Petr Kašpárek on the role of TNFR1 signalling in the Netherton syndrome. Jan joined the Corn Lab as a Research Assistant in September 2022. His research interests include regulation of gene expression and synthetic biology, with a special focus on utilizing the CRISPRa/i technologies in therapeutic applications.

Ana received her PhD in Cancer Biology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She carried out her pre-and postdoctoral research studies at the Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich focusing on understanding the molecular mechanisms of bone cancer progression and metastasis, identifying the key regulatory components as well as finding novel innovative therapeutic approaches. Later on, Ana initiated a new research field in the lab and was directly leading PhD students. The group was investigating the functional relevance of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles and microRNAs in metastatic sarcoma and their potential use as diagnostic and prognostic factors.

Prior to joining the Corn lab, Ana was working as a Clinical Scientist at ARTIDIS AG, a clinical stage health-tech start-up founded in Basel, Switzerland, that has developed the first nanomechanical biomarker for cancer diagnosis and treatment optimization.

Ana joined the Corn lab as a Program Manager in September 2022.

Lena Kobel received her Master’s degree in Cell Biology from the ETH Zürich in 2017. In her Master thesis she focused on generating stable mammalian cell lines using CRISPR-Cas9 in the lab of Prof. Martin Jinek at the University of Zürich, where she then worked for another 1.5 years as a technician. After that, she worked as an intern at Caribou Biosciences, Inc., in Berkeley for 6 months on a project focused on the development of CAR-T cell therapies. Lena joined the Corn lab as a Cell Line Engineer in March 2020.

Zac received his PhD in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine from the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in Crete in 2011, working with Dr. Michalis Averof on establishing genetic tools for functional developmental studies in emerging model organisms, focusing on gene trapping and site directed recombination.  He then moved to Prof. Didier Stainier Lab, initially in UCSF and later in the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung research in Germany, where he worked on non-coding RNAs during development and regeneration using new reverse genetics tools.  After delving into inconsistencies between different reverse genetic approaches, Zac’s interests shifted to more fundamental questions like why some mutations cause a phenotype while others don’t.  Zac joined the “Corn Lab” as Head of the Genome Engineering and Measurement Lab in August 2019.  Amongst his research interests are regulation of gene expression during physiology and disease, with a special focus on understanding penetrance and expressivity, two classical Genetics terms that are often collectively used to describe the black box that lies between genotype and phenotype.

Susanne received her PhD in Paleogenomics at the University of Mainz exploring the genetic makeup of ancient populations during the Neolithization process of Europe. After working at the Molecular Pathology group of the University Hospital in Zurich as a Research Associate, she joined the High Throughput Sequencing team of the Functional Genomics Center Zurich in 2017. Since 2019, she is working as a Genomics Expert together with Dr. Zacharias Kontarakis on Next Generation Sequencing workflows at GEML. Susanne joined the Corn Lab in September 2020 to support the team with high throughput sequencing applications.

Irene received her MSc degree in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy), where she worked on the characterization of the epidermal stemness regulatory network in Epidermolysis Bullosa. Later on, she joined Vector BioPharma AG as a research associate with a focus on immunology and genome editing in the development of adenovirus-based gene therapies. Irene joined the Corn Lab as a technical specialist in March 2024; her research interests focus on the therapeutic translation of genome editing technologies.

Markus received his PhD in Computational Infection Biology from University College Dublin, Ireland, working with Prof. Geraldine Butler and Prof. Des Higgins on comparative genomics in human fungal pathogens, focusing on uncovering the population structure and characterizing transcriptional networks in Candida species. Markus joined the Corn lab staff as a Bioinformatics Scientist in May 2019 from Genentech, South San Francisco, where he worked on large scale cancer genomics and familial data sets. At ETHZ, he works on CRISPR- and NGS-related computational approaches and is part of the NCCR RNA & Disease.

Iryna Vykhlyantseva completed her master's degree in Biotechnology at Instituto Superior Técnico in late 2022. In July 2023, she joined the Corn Lab's GEML team as a research assistant. Her current work involves the application of genome editing tools and the analysis of editing outcomes in mammalian cells.

Eric received his PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics from the University of Minnesota in 2020 in the lab of Dr. Wendy Gordon developing improved genome editing technologies, including a Cas-DNA tethering platform. In November 2020, Eric joined the Corn Lab as a postdoc interested in studying synthetic lethalities and viabilities in DNA repair utilizing CRISPR.

Marija received her Master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Rijeka in 2015. She worked with Prof. Antonija Jurak Begonja on the role of Vps34 in proplatelet formation. She received her PhD in Genome Biology from ETH Zürich in 2024, working with Prof. Jacob Corn to identify mediators of erythroblast enucleation by CRISPR screening. She continued working in the Corn Lab as a postdoc in June 2024 and is currently studying the role of the exocyst complex in erythroblast enucleation.

Grégoire has received his Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Physiopathology from the University of Bordeaux (France) in December 2019 in the lab of Prof. Moreau-Gaudry. His work was interested in the gene therapy of congenital erythropoietic porphyria with a focus on the genotoxicity of CRISPR-Cas9 system. He continued with a one-year post-doctoral experience to apply the SHERLOCK detection system in the context of chronic myeloid leukemia. Grégoire joined the Corn lab as a post-doctoral researcher in January 2021. His research interests include gene editing and monogenic diseases, with a special focus on gene therapy of sickle cell disease.

John received his PhD in Oncology from the University of Oxford in 2020, working with Prof. Kristijan Ramadan on the molecular mechanisms of DNA-protein crosslink repair. John joined the Corn Lab as a postdoctoral researcher in October 2020, where he is using CRISPR-Cas9-based screening approaches to identify genetic interactions that can be exploited in cancer therapy.

Danielle received her B. Sc. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology from Marshall University, where she did research on secondary metabolite production in plants. In 2021 she received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University where she worked with Dr. James Haber to characterize the mechanisms of gene editing via single strand template repair. Danielle joined the Corn lab in April 2021 as postdoctoral researcher with interests in further understanding the mechanisms of DNA damage and utilizing these insights to develop tools to edit the genome.

Roman received his B.Sc. from Universität Potsdam and his M.Sc. from the Humboldt-Universität Berlin where he worked on light-regulated, synthetic gene circuits in the group of Prof. Möglich. In 2020, Roman received his Ph.D. from the University of Boulder, where he had developed tools by combining CRISPR and aptamer components in the group of Prof. Batey. He is currently interested in finding new ways to understand DNA damage repair and developing new tools to easily modify DNA.

Erman received his Ph.D in molecular biology from Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School in 2018, working with Dr. Scott Keeney focusing on the role two meiosis specific genes (cyclin B3 and Ankrd31)in mammalian meiosis. Erman joined the Corn Lab as a postdoc in May 2019, is currently using CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome engineering to understand novel genetic pathways in response to DNA damage.

Young earned his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Seoul National University (South Korea) in 2023, where he worked in Dr. V. Narry Kim’s lab, focusing on the molecular and structural insights of siRNA and miRNA production by human Dicer. In November 2024, he joined the Corn Lab as a postdoctoral researcher, with a research focus on leveraging CRISPR technology to address fundamental biological questions.

David received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2022 under the supervision of Prof. Steve Jackson. His work focused on identifying functional genetic interactions within the DNA damage response through CRISPR-Cas9 screens. David joined the Corn Lab as a postdoctoral researcher in October 2022. His research interests include DNA repair, CRISPR-Cas9 technologies, genetic screening, and therapeutic gene editing.

Xiaojing received her bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 2020, Xiaojing received her Ph.D. from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Science, working with Dr. Scott Keeney on the mechanism to regulate meiotic DSB formation. Xiaojing joined the Corn Lab as a postdoctoral researcher in March 2021 with interests in studying DNA damage repair and implementation of therapeutic gene editing.  

Matthias received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna in 2018, working with Prof. Johannes Zuber on the development of genetic- and transcriptomics tools for the study of gene regulation in leukemia. In July 2019 Matthias joined the Corn Lab as Postdoc to study the genetic basis of selective protein degradation. His research interests include protein homeostasis and exploratory genetics, with a special focus on protein quality control.

Carolyn received her PhD in molecular oncology from The University of Melbourne in 2021, working with Professor Frédéric Hollande on tumour and immunological heterogeneity in the context of metastatic colorectal cancer. She then completed a 3-year postdoc at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Melbourne, Australia) with Dr Mohamed Fareh, where she leveraged mismatch tolerance within the CRISPR-Cas13 system to selectively target point-mutated oncogenes with single-nucleotide precision. Carolyn joined the Corn lab as a postdoctoral researcher in June 2024. Her ongoing research interests include functional cancer (epi)genomics and harnessing next-generation genome editing tools for precision medicine.

Marwa Peters Al-Bayati received her MSc in Biology from ETH Zurich in February 2023. She worked in the lab of Prof. Dr. Yves Barral, with the focus on developing an inducible gene-knockout system to investigate the role of Slx5 in chromosome segregation in budding yeast. Marwa joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student in March 2023. Her work is on how chemical modification of semi-synthetic model protein affects protein degradation and finding the cellular machinery mediating this process. Her research interests include functional genomics, protein quality control, protein homeostasis as well as potential application in protein engineering for therapeutic purposes.

Benedetta Bellinazzi received her MSc degree in Medical Biotechnology from San Raffaele University (Milan, Italy) in 2023. She worked on the use of base editors for the treatment of a rare neurodevelopmental genetic disease and on viral vector delivery to the brain. Benedetta joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student in January 2024, to acquire new knowledge on DNA damage repair mechanisms after genome editing. Her research interests include CRISPR evolution and its applications across various fields, ranging from basic research to molecular medicine.

Martina received her MSc in Biology from ETH Zurich in September 2022. She worked in the Corn lab, focusing on the role of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in an autosomal dominant form of cerebral palsy. Martina returned to the Corn lab as a PhD student in December 2022, investigating how chemical modification of the protein backbone affects protein stability. Her research interests include protein homeostasis and functional genomics, as well as the potential application of protein engineering in biotechnology.

Fedor Gorbenko received his Master’s degree in Molecular biology from Moscow state University in 2018 in Russia. He worked in the laboratory of professor Pavel Georgiev and focused on Polycomb-mediated repression of gene expression in a Drosophila model. Fedor joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student in January 2020. He is working on discovering principles that regulate functioning of CRISPR-Cas systems with a special focus on Cas14-related systems. Fedor’s research interests include evolution of CRISPR-Cas systems and implementation of the technology in therapy.

Tijana Nikic received her MSc in Human Biology from LMU Munich, completing her thesis in 2022 with Prof. Dr. Stefan Stricker on understanding astrocyte cell identity and optimizing their reprogramming to neurons. She then joined Roche pRED for a 10-month internship focused on novel cancer immunotherapies, followed by a year in the Rogulja Lab at Harvard Medical School, where she studied sleep regulation. In November 2024, Tijana joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student to investigate the mechanisms of organelle clearance during reticulocyte maturation. Her research interests include functional genomics, unraveling molecular mechanisms driving cellular processes, and advancing genome editing technologies for therapeutic applications.

Jenna Rode received her Bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley in 2023, working in the lab of Professor Gary Karpen on the role of heterochromatin binding proteins in nuclear organization. Jenna joined the Corn Lab in September 2024. She is currently working on her Master’s thesis, focusing on discovering novel mechanisms of DNA-protein crosslink degradation.

Moritz Schlapansky received his Master’s degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Vienna in 2020. He worked in the laboratory of Professor Michael McManus at UCSF, focusing on the development of a novel genetic screening paradigm and targeted sequencing approaches in order to decipher cell state transitions. Moritz joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student in July 2020. He is using the CRISPR toolbox to delineate genetic interactions that could inspire new cancer therapeutics. Moritz’ research interests include functional genomics, therapeutic gene editing and cancer biology, with a special focus on technology development.

Sebastian Siegner received his MSc in Biochemistry from ETH Zurich in December 2020 with his work on the therapeutic potential of CRISPR Base- and Prime-Editors for the genetic disease Fanconi Anemia.

Lilly van de Venn received her Master’s degree in Biology from ETH Zurich in 2017, working with Prof. Dr. Gerald Schwank on genome editing, focusing on the development of DNA barcodes harnessing the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Lilly joined the Corn Lab as a PhD student in December 2018, investigating DNA double-strand break repair after cleavage with different Cas enzymes and off-target detection. Her research interests include DNA repair mechanisms, as well as the potential use of genome editing for therapeutic purposes.

Charles Yeh received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2014. He then joined the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NCATS-NIH). As a member of the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program, Charles developed and applied human stem cell-derived disease models to identify potential therapeutics for rare lysosomal storage disorders, including Farber and Wolman diseases. In 2018, he joined the IGI as a graduate student and is presently studying the mechanisms of DNA repair homology search in the context of gene editing.

Xinhe (Lily) Zheng received her Bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley in 2023. She is currently enrolled in the Molecular Mechanisms of Disease Master's program at ETH Zürich. Lily joined the Corn lab in July 2024. For her Master's thesis she is investigating the dynamics of homology search during homology-directed repair of DNA double-strand breaks.