Career Session Speakers

Prof. Dr. Marie-Christine Dabauvalle

Group Leader at the University of Würzburg, Biozentrum

Head, Genderforum JMU Würzburg

Former Head, Gender Equality, JMU Würzburg

Marie-Christine is a cell biologist with special interest in the function and dynamics of the nuclear envelope. She graduated from the University Paris 7 (France), where she also obtained her PhD in 1979 for a thesis performed at the cancer research institute “Gustave Roussy” in Villejuif (France). Then Marie-Christine spent several years as postdoc at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (until 1985, with Werner W. Franke), where she studied the transmembrane exchange of macromolecules through the nuclear pore complexes. During this time she was habilitated by the University Paris 7 (1984). After that she joined Eric Karsenti´s group at the EMBL in Heidelberg and studied the structure and duplication of centrosomes (1985-1987). In 1987 she moved as lecturer to the University of Würzburg and since 1994 she is associate professor at the Division of Electron Microcopy (apl. Professorin since 1998). Her research concentrates on mechanisms involved in the formation of nuclear pore complexes and the impact of the nuclear envelope and nuclear membrane-associated proteins on various forms of muscle dystrophies. Furthermore, Marie-Christine was head of the Gender Equality office of the University.

Dr. Thea Ziegler 

Sequencing Application Sales Specialist at PacBio

Thea Ziegler studied Biophysics at the Humboldt-University of Berlin and Biotechnology at the Ecole Supérieure de Biotechnologie Strasbourg. At the university of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, she was a research trainee for 8 months where she characterized factors involved in age-related macular degeneration. Her PhD mainly focussed on signal transduction mechanisms of sensory photoreceptors aiming to explore the regulation of cellular processes by light at the university of Bayreuth and the Humboldt-University of Berlin. After a short PostDoc at the Free University of Berlin, where her work entailed the the education of students and the research of the health of honeybees, she entered industry as a Sales Specialist for Digital Health at Cara Care. Afterwards, she switched to Thermo Fisher Scientific and worked as Genetic Analaysis Account Manager and later Senior NGS Application Sales Specialist. Currently, she holds the position of Sequencing Application Sales Specialist at Pacific Biosciences, where she works as a specialist for all genomic applications, informing and supporting researchers on applying and implementing the innovative genomics solutions of Pacific Biosciences.

Dr. Jesus Gil-Pulido

Technical Application Specialist at Cytek Biosciences

Technical Application Specialist. After finishing his Bachelor in Biotechnology and Master in Immunology in Spain, he moved 3 months to the DKFZ in Heidelberg, where he did an internship focused in a vaccine against the Epstein Barr Virus. After that, he moved to Würzburg, where he finished his PhD in Biomedicine in the group of Prof. Dr. Alma Zernecke-Madsen, with a focus on atherosclerosis. During his whole research career he had a strong interest in flow cytometry, and he always tried to learn as much as possible. After his PhD, he moved to a Flow Cytometry Core Facility at the Institute für Molekulare Biologie (IMB) in Mainz, where he worked 2 years. Later on he decided to move to his next career path and he applied for a position as Technical Application Specialist at Cytek Biosciences, a role that he have from the past 3 years.