People

Team


Principal Investigator

Dieter Saur
Dieter Saur

Dieter Saur studied medicine in Munich and obtained his doctorate in gastroenterology at TUM’s university hospital, graduating summa cum laude and winning TUM’s doctoral award. His doctoral thesis and postdoctoral qualification (2006) investigated neuronal control of the intestine, i.e. “brain-gut” function. A clinician and a researcher in one person, Saur established a new focus on tumor diseases of the gastrointestinal tract in 2002. The use of new endoscopic imaging procedures for early detection of gastrointestinal tumors and the development of novel therapeutic strategies for tumor subtypes are key topics of his research. A consultant of internal medicine specializing in gastroenterology since 2007 and a professor since 2013, Saur has accumulated a range of awards and grants along the way – most recently the prestigious Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his work in pancreatic cancer.


Team


Research Technician

Saskia Ettl
Research Technician




Team


Postdoctoral Researcher

Markus Tschurtschenthaler
Markus Tschurtschenthaler
PostDoc - Junior group leader

Colorectal cancer research: inflammation in oncogene-induced intestinal tumourigenesis

I did my Bachelor’s degree in Biology (2010) and my Master’s study in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology (2011) at the Leopold-Franzens-University (LFU) of Innsbruck (Austria). During my Master’s, I went for a free-mover semester and research stay at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich (Switzerland). After I completed my Master’s degree, I started a PhD at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI) and continued my PhD in 2013 at the University of Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College; United Kingdom) in the lab of Prof. Arthur Kaser, where I graduated in 2016 as PhD in Medicine. After graduation, I accepted the kind offer of Prof. Saur to join his lab as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Technical University of Munich (TUM, Klinikum rechts der Isar). Since January 2019 I occupy the position of a Junior Group Leader in the lab of Prof. Saur.




Stefanie Bärthel
Stefanie Bärthel
PostDoc

Tumor microenvironment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Single-cell RNA sequencing




Christian Schneeweis
PostDoc
High-throughput drug screens to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities of PDAC




Team


PhD graduate students

Deelaka Willappili
PhD student
PI3K-mediate whole genome doubling in PDAC
I finished my bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics (2016) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and my master's degree in Molecular Genetics (2019) at the University of Toronto. My PhD project in the Saur lab involves elucidating molecular mechanisms behind PI3K-mutant driven whole genome doubling in mouse PDAC models.




Devi Anggraini Ngandiri
PhD student

PDAC subtypes Tumor microenvironment and combinatorial therapy strategy

I finished my undergrad in Biotechnology at Atma Jaya University, Indonesia (2017). Then I continued with my master’s degree in cell biology at TU Kaiserslautern, Germany (2021), where I analyzed the phenotypic consequences of polyploidy, which is a hallmark of cancer. In 2022 I joined the AG Saur group as Ph.D. researcher. I mainly work on defining the subtype-specific inflammatory drivers in PDAC and investigate its combinatorial therapy using a mouse model.





 Anantharamanan Rajamani
Anantharamanan Rajamani
PhD student (Bioinformatics)
Tumor evolution in PDAC




Antonio Zaurito
Antonio Zaurito
PhD student
Tumor mircoenvironment analysis in colorectal cancer




Daniele Lucarelli
PhD student (Bioinformatics)

Multi-omics characterisation of the PDAC tumour microenvironment

I did my first Master’s degree in medical Biotechnology (2019) at the university of Perugia (Italy) and my second Master’s study in Bioinformatics (2021) at the University of Bologna (Italy). During my second Master’s, I went for an Erasmus internship at Theis Lab at the institute of computational biology (ICB Helmholtz centre Munich) where I worked on my master thesis. As a PhD student in the Saur Lab, I am currently analysing multi-omics data with a focus on single cell technologies to decipher the tumour micro environment composition in PDAC and the complex communication network between cancer cells and the immune system.




Rushin Gindra
PhD student (Bioinformatics)

Multi-modal spatial-omics analysis 
(i.e. histology whole slide images & spatial transcriptomics). Integrating spatial gene expression and pancreatic tumour morphology (multi-modal spatial-omics analysis) to predict tumour subtypes and therapeutic vulnerabilities

I am a first year PhD Candidate at Saur Lab (TranslaTUM), Peng Lab (Helmholtz Munich). Before joining as a doctoral candidate, I was a researcher at Boston University, School of Medicine (BUSM), USA, working on developing image biomarkers of lung squamous premalignant progression. I got my master’s degree in computer science from Rutgers University, USA. My master’s thesis involved developing methods for automatic cardiac segmentation using multi-modal data. My research interests are specifically focused towards deep learning and medical image analysis. I aim to become a research scientist bridging the gap between state of the art academic research and it’s huge translational potential in biomedical industry.





Tina Sket
PhD student

KRAS-dependency and heterogeneity in PDAC

I completed my BSc studies in Microbiology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2018, and afterwards MSc in Genetics and molecular biosciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in 2020. I continued my research for one year at the National Institute of Chemistry, Slovenia, where I worked in the field of immunology and synthetic biology. Since 2021 I am a PhD student in Saur lab, where I am investigating KRAS dependency and heterogeneity of PDAC tumors, using transgenic mouse models.





Valentina Brunner
Valentina Brunner
Master of Science
Tumor-site specific dysbiosis in subtypes of colorectal cancer



Frederic Saab
PhD student





Team


Student assistants

Carolin Bast
Master Thesis student
Functional analysis of lysyl oxidases in a PDAC microenvironment.




Juliano Caraballo Cacciato
Student assistent

TUM Department of Chemistry 

Born in Argentina, raised in the US and now studying Biochemistry at the Technical University of Munich. 

I joined the Saur Lab in 2022 as a student assistant after completing my research laboratory course. 

I took on this position during my studies to broaden my knowledge through practical experience and to gain first insights into my future career. 





Sina Bleis
Master Thesis student
Characterization of primary pancreatic tumor cell lines




Team


Medical students

Emily Eppinger
Medical student

Pharmacological dependencies of pancreatic cancer

Faculty of Medicine - Technical University of Munich

I started my medical studies in 2019 at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich.
After finishing the preclinical part in 2021, I chose to continue the clinical one at TU München.
Since 2022 I am part of the Saur lab, looking for the perfect synergism among drugs for pancreatic cancer cells.





Constantin Schmitt
Faculty of Medicine - Technical University of Munich
Tumor microenvironment characterization of molecular pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma subtypes



Team


Alumni

Andreas Schirmer
Master Thesis student




Angelica Arenas Vargas
Student assistent

I am from Colombia and came to Germany for my studies in pharmaceutical bioprocess engineering (Pharmazeutische Bioprozesstechnik) that started in October 2019. One of my goals is to collaborate on the investigation and cure of diseases, which is why August 2019 I joined our research group. Appart from my studies I like to read and see new places in this beautiful county.

School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan - Technical University of Munich




Cheng-En Lu
Student assistent
Born in Düsseldorf, I came to Munich to study physics and joined the group in 2019. Currently working on my master's thesis in biophysics. In my free time I enjoy playing softball and telling people why "The Alchemist" is an overrated book.



Chiara Falcomatà
Chiara Falcomatà
PhD student
Combinatorial treatment strategies and tumor evolution in PDAC




Diana David
Student assistent
Computer engineer from Sibiu, Romania. In my journey of bridging the gap between medicine and informatics, I moved to Munich to study Biomedical Computing and joined the group in 2020.
Along this journey, I like to travel as much as possible and disconnect for a while by dancing and reading.



Hannah Jakubowsky
Hannah Jakubowsky
PhD student
Therapeutic vulnerabilities in PDAC




Jeannine Heetmeyer
Medical student

Treatment-induced adaptive immune responses in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Faculty of Medicine - RWTH Aachen University 




Katarina Ondrejkova
Medical student

CRISPR/Cas9 screens to uncover resistance mechanisms to PDK1-loss in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Faculty of Medicine - Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich




Kathrin Grabichler
Kathrin Grabichler
Medical student

Characterization of tumor-associated macrophages in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma tumor progression

Faculty of Medicine - Technical University of Munich




Katia Sleiman
Katia Sleiman
PhD student

Therapy resistance

CRISPR screening