News
Welcome to our team!
Mukundan Shaju has been supporting the MVTV team as a postdoc since January 2026, and Alexis Robitaille since April 2026.
Louis Tioka started his PhD thesis in April 2026, which is integrated into the thematic translational unit "Infection of the Immunocompromised Host" at the DZIF – German Center for Infection Research.
In 2026, two new master's students, Johanna Gutsmann (since February) and Merdisa Hujdur (from June), are completing their master's theses in our laboratory.
Benjamin Harder started on November 1st, 2025, as a PhD student within the graduate program RTG2771: "Humans and microbes" .
We are pleased to welcome three new members to our team:
Lydia Lenakaki started her voluntary social year at our institute in September 2025 and supports the team in carrying out general laboratory tasks, while acquiring basic molecular biology techniques such as PCR and DNA minipreparations.
Vishaka Ramamurthy started on October 1st, 2025, as a PhD student within the graduate program RTG2887 “VISualization and imaging of virus infectION” ( VISION ).
Allison Hanf is working on the structural biology of the MCPyV virus as part of her master's thesis beginning of October 20th, 2025.
Directly after their start, Lydia and Vishakha were already able to participate in our annual Joint Group Retreat in collaboration with the AG Prof. Grundhoff ( Virus Genomics , LIV) in Wewelsfleth, where our group members had the opportunity to present their own projects and exchange new ideas. In addition, concept talks on selected topics, as well as two presentations by the invited guest speakers Prof. Florian Erhard and Prof. Harald Wodrich, were part of the 2-day program.
30th September to 1st October 2025
4th Deep-DV Symposium on High Resolution Virology
Host: FOR5200 Deep-DV: Disrupt - Evade - Exploit
Venue: Max Delbrück Center - Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology (MDC-BIMSB), Hannoversche Str. 28, 10115 Berlin