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Lab Members

Sha Liu (PI)
sha.liu (AT) kuleuven.be
Sha was born and raised in Wuhan, China, and conducted his PhD research at the Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he studied developmental genetics in zebrafish. He then moved to Baltimore to perform the postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University, USA with Dr. Mark Wu, studying the molecular and circuit mechanisms underlying sleep and circadian rhythm in fruit flies. After seven years in the US, he flew across the ocean again to set up his own lab at VIB-KU Leuven, Belgium.

Joana Dopp (PhD Student, FWO PhD Fellow)
joana.dopp (AT) kuleuven.be
Joana is from Cologne, Germany. She received her MSc in Neuroscience from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2016. During this time, she studied sleep-wake disturbances in a mouse model of Parkinson's disease at the University Hospital Zurich. After her master's studies, she studied the synaptic plasticity of human neurons transplanted into mice at Imperial College London. She joined the Flysleep lab in October 2017. Joana enjoys traveling, photography, scuba diving, and snowboarding in her free time.

El-Sayed Baz (Postdoctoral Fellow)
elsayed.baz (AT) kuleuven.be
Sayed was born and raised in Sharkia, Egypt. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Kassel, Germany, where he studied the molecular mechanisms underlying circadian rhythm in cockroaches. After this, he worked as a Behavioral Physiology and Neuroethology lecturer at the Suez Canal University Egypt. He joined the Flysleep lab in February 2018 to conduct his postdoctoral research. His many hobbies include embroidery and design.

Antonio Ortega (PhD Student)
antonio.ortega (AT) kuleuven.be
Antonio comes from Huelva, Spain. He achieved a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Seville in 2016. Before joining the Flysleep Lab as a technician in February 2019, he completed his Master's Thesis in Bioinformatics at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he worked on free software tools for the quantitative analysis of Mass Spectrometry proteomics data. He started his Ph.D. research on fly sleep behavior in July 2021. Antonio enjoys learning languages (both human and programming), exercising, and traveling in his free time.

Miranda Dyson (PhD Student, FWO PhD Fellow)
miranda.dyson (AT) kuleuven.be
Miranda comes from Nottingham, UK. She received her BSc in Biomedical Science at Manchester Met University before moving to London to first work as a Clinical Research Assistant and complete her MSc in Neuroscience at King’s College London. She then worked as a technician at University College London for two years, studying ALS-FTD in Drosophila. Miranda joined the Flysleep lab in June 2019. She enjoys sewing, aerial arts, and scuba diving in her spare time.

Chien-Chun Chen (Postdoctoral Fellow)
chienchun.chen (AT) kuleuven.be
coming soon...

Yifan Wu (PhD Student, FWO PhD Fellow)
yifan.wu (AT) kuleuven.be
Yifan comes from Changsha, China. He pursued a master's degree at Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Copenhagen. After his master's studies in 2019, he worked as a technician at the University of Bordeaux and studied the role of insular circuits in anxiety and emotional processing. In March 2021, Yifan joined the Fly Sleep Lab to study the role of sleep on Drosophila central synapses. In his free time, he loves binge-watching TV and socializing in bars.

Alessandra Lodi (PhD Student)
alessandra.lodi (AT) kuleuven.be
coming soon...

Erik Tedre (Technician)
erik.tedre (AT) kuleuven.be
coming soon...