SPAGNOLI LAB MEMBERS

Featured

Role: Group Leader, Professor of Regenerative Medicine

Francesca has recently moved to London to become a Group Leader at the Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King's College London. She has been the recipient of prestigious grants, including an ERC Starting grant, ERC Proof-of-Concept grant, and and Wellcome Trust Investigator award. More recently, she became the coordinator of a FET OpenEuropean consortium on bioengineering pancreatic tissue. She is also the Director of Wellcome Trust PhD Programme called ‘Advanced Therapies for Regenerative Medicine’.

Georgina Goss

Role: Postdoc

I have joined the Spagnoli Lab as a postdoc to investigate mesenchyme heterogeneity and how this affects pancreas development to create an accurate ex-vivo pancreatic niche.

Leila Hermosilla Andrivet

Role: PhD student

I have now joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab to pursue my PhD in pancreas development. My project focuses on the co-differentiation of endodermal and mesodermal cells towards pancreatic fates. I am particularly interested in investigating the crosstalk between these two lineages during development, with the aim of improving our understanding of organogenesis and contributing to regenerative strategies for the pancreas.

Christopher Lee

Role: Postdoc (HFSP LT Fellowship)

I have joined Spagnoli Lab as a HFSP postdoctoral fellow to explore the intercellular crosstalk between immune cells and the developing pancreas.

Siwanarta Ma

Role: Bioinformatician

As a Junior Bioinformatician at the Spagnoli Lab, I combine my background in wet lab research with computational analysis. My primary work involves developing and implementing pipelines to reconstruct cell lineages, specifically mapping the transition from stem cells to pancreatic progenitors using both in vitro data and in silico algorithms. I also build interactive dashboards that help the scientific community explore and interpret our lab's findings.

Raquel A. Martinez Garcia de la Torre

Role: Postdoc (Ramon Areces fellowship)

I recently joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab as a postdoctoral researcher, where I explore how the pancreatic microenvironment, particularly ECM proteins, influences cellular identity during development and disease, with a specific focus on diabetes.

Anna Salowka

Role: PhD student

I’m a PhD student in Prof. Spagnoli lab. I completed my undergraduate degree in Molecular Genetics at Kings College London and I’m currently finishing my MRes course in Molecular Basis of Human disease at Imperial College London. Some of my favourite things to do outside science include dancing, cooking and baking.

Karolina Stanczyk

Role: PhD student

My PhD is funded by the KCL MRC DTP and involved 3 rotations, after which I joined the Spagnoli lab. My PhD project investigates a hepatopancreatobiliary intermediate progenitor (IMP) cell population identified by the Spagnoli Lab. The IMPs are a multipotent progenitor subpopulation that contributes to the development of the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. I am specifically focusing on the hepatic descendants of the IMPs and will investigate whether they have any unique properties or functions compared to surrounding hepatic cells, both during homeostasis and during liver regeneration.

Alejo Torres Cano

Role: Postdoc

I have joined Prof. Spagnoli’s lab as a postdoc to study how the pancreatic microenvironment shapes cellular communication during pancreas development.

Heather Wilson

Role: Research Assistant

Heather is a research assistant in the lab, working on direct reprogramming of human fibroblasts into pancreatic beta-like cells. She obtained a BSc in genetics and immunology from the Australian National University, where she subsequently worked on an ENU mutagenesis screen to identify novel mutations affecting gastrulation and organogenesis in mice.

STAFF

2008-2018 Heike Naumann Lab Manager (now MDC, Berlin, Germany)

PHD STUDENTS

2008-2012 Kristin Petzold (now Parexel International Corp.)
2008-2014 Nuria Cerda-Esteban (now Science Management, MDC, Germany)
2009-2013 Igor Pongrac (now at Merck Group)
2010-2014 Julia Kofent
2013-2018 Corinna Cozzitorto (now postdoc at UCSF, USA)
2013-2018 Juan Zhang (now postdoc University of Toronto, CA)
2014-2020 Silvia Ruzittu (now postdoc BMBS, Berlin, Germany)
2015-2020 Laura Mueller (now global product manager Miltenyi Biotec, Germany)
2015-2021 David Willnow (now postdoc at The Crick, London, UK)
2020-2024 Abigail Isaacson (now Postdoc at the Crick, UK)

POSTDOCS

2009-2013 Elisa Rodriguez-Seguel (now Assistant Professor, UFRO, CL)
2013-2016 Sophie Escot (now Inserm Researcher, Ecole Polytechnique, FR)
2019-2023 Jean-Francois Darrigrand (now Maitre de Conference / Lecturer, Sorbonne University, Paris, FR)

MASTER / UGRAD STUDENTS

2008 Hendrik Messal (Master Charite Mol Medicine, DE)
2010 Clement Charenton (ENS, Cachan, FR)
2016 Stylianos Gnafakis (Master Charite Mol Medicine, DE)
2016 Silvia DiFrancescantonio (Erasmus Postgraduate, La Sapienza, IT)
2017 Renata Risi (MD Internship, La Sapienza, IT)
2022 Ulrike Rieprecht (Erasmus student; Free University, Berlin, Germany)
2023 Isabel Tay (UG student; KCL, UK)
2024 Joshua Massey-Thompson (Imperial University, UK); Federica Passaretta (UG student; KCL, UK); Jonathan Collard (UG student; KCL, UK)
2025 Mariella Suarez (UG student; KCL, UK); Yixuan Wang (Master student; KCL, UK)
2025 Sara Jones (Virgilio Programme; Humanitas University and Politecnico Milan, IT)
2026 Xindi Cao (UG student; KCL, UK)

SPAGNOLI LAB MEMBERS

Role: Group Leader, Professor of Regenerative Medicine

Role: Postdoc

Role: PhD student

Role: Postdoc (HFSP LT Fellowship)

Role: Bioinformatician

Role: Postdoc (Ramon Areces fellowship)

Role: PhD student

Role: PhD student

Role: Postdoc

Role: Research Assistant

ALUMNI

STAFF

PHD STUDENTS

POSTDOCS

MASTER / UGRAD STUDENTS

ALUMNI