Eva D'haene
Who is Eva?
Eva was a postdoc in the FunGen lab since 2021 (shared supervision with prof. Elfride De Baere) until June 2026. Currently, she is pursuing a senior postdoc at Nordic EMBL, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland at the University of Helsinki.
She obtained her PhD in 2021, working with prof. Sarah Vergult on the interpretation of non-coding structural variation in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Eva was awarded an FWO junior postdoctoral fellowship. Her projects involved mapping 3D genomes and regulatory landscapes in the human retina (with prof. Elfride De Baere) and interpreting the impact of pathogenic structural variation in patients with retinal and developmental disorders. Additionally, she was also involved in teaching and supervision of PhD students.
Eva has built great expertise in regulatory genomics, in particular 3D genome mapping technologies (4C, UMI-4C, Hi-C, Pore-C), enhancer validation assays and (epi)genomic data analysis.
In her spare time, she loves to travel, drink coffee, ride her bike and climb rocks.
Michael Vaughan
Who is Michael?
Mike was a postdoc in the FunGen lab since February 2023 until February 2026. He carried out his PhD studies in the University College Cork Department of Physiology. His PhD research focused on using 3D human neuronal culture for the study of Alzheimer’s disease.
His postdoc project looked at the multiparametric characterisation of neurodevelopmental disorders using human neural organoids. Working within both the FunGen lab and the team of Prof. Ruslan Dmitriev, Mike’s research focused on the integration of complex cell culture, advanced imaging, and “Big Data” methodologies for experimental pipeline design.
When not working in the lab Mike is often surfing, playing music, or trying to build something.
Mike was funded on a Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF) project. In addition to this project, he was also involved in training and supervision of Msc & PhD students, as well as scouting out new techniques to bring back to Gent.
María del Rocío Pérez Baca
Who is Rocío?
Rocío was a PhD student in the FunGen lab from December 2019 until June 2025. Her project involved the unravelling of the function of two transcription factors, ZFHX3 and ZFHX4, in neuronal development and assess how dysfunction can lead to disease.
To better understand how loss of function can lead to disease, she used CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering and overexpression to study the molecular, morphological, and electrophysiological effects of aberrant proteins. She also worked with in vivo models, Drosophila melanogaster and Danio rerio, to study the phenotypical effects of ZFHX3 and ZFHX4 aberrations.
She was awarded a Marguerite-Marie Delacroix fellowship to work on these exciting projects.
Rocío is now a postdoctoral assistant at the Department of Head and Skin.
Lies Vantomme
Who is Lies?
Lies was the expert lab tech of the FunGen lab since the start of the lab in 2019 until June 2024. Lies has great expertise in all types of genomics experiments ranging from tissue culture, to all sorts of NGS library preps, western blot, CRISPR, etc. Hence, she provided excellent wet lab support for all the ongoing projects.
Lucky for us, we can now again ask her help for NGS library preps, as she is now providing departmental support for these types of experiments since July 2025.
Eva Jacobs
Who is Eva?
The people powering FunGen Lab
Our team consists of a young and enthusiastic team of researchers who strive to advance the field in understanding the genetic causes of neurodevelopmental disorders.
