Assistant Professor Mart Lamers
Team leader
Mart is an Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and group leader of the coronavirus lab in the Programme of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
He received his BS in Biology from the University of Amsterdam in 2013 and his MS in Infection & Immunity from the Erasmus MC in 2015.
In 2022, he completed his PhD at the Erasmus MC in the group of Dr. Bart Haagmans on the topic of coronavirus pathogenesis and evolution. Mart is interested in virus-host interactions relevant to pandemic potential and studies these in organoid systems of humans and animals.
He aims to identify animal coronaviruses that are able to infect humans, uncover the mechanisms by which they infect human cells, and investigate the susceptibility to these viruses at the population level.
Dr. Julie Chu
Research Fellow
Julie completed her BSc in Biochemistry from King’s College London in 2017. In 2021, she completed her PhD at the University of Hong Kong under the supervision of Professor Leo Poon. Her PhD work investigated the effects of vaccine-induced heterosubtypic immune pressure on the influenza A virus genome. Julie’s primary research interests include evolution of viral pathogens, host immune responses to infections and viral disease pathogenesis.
Yovita Hendra (MSc)
Research Assistant
Yovita received her BSc in Biomedicine from Indonesia International Institute for Life Sciences in 2020. In 2023, she completed her MRes in Biomedical Research at Imperial College London. For her first MRes project, she developed a 3D printed platform to cultivate previously uncultivable bacteria for antibiotic discovery in Dr Harry Low’s lab. Her second project in Professor Masao Takata and Dr Sanooj Soni's lab looked into the role of acid sphingomyelinase in proinflammatory microvesicles production in acute respiratory distress syndrome. Yovita’s interests are in zoonotic virus transmission and microbe-host interactions.
Akanksha Rawat (MSc)
Research Assistant
Namaste! I am Akanksha Rawat, I have completed my Bachelor’s as well as Master’s in Plant Sciences from Delhi University and Savitribai Phule Pune University in India. I have gained research experience of over 2 years as a Senior Research Fellow at CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in India, where I worked on analysing and visualising Next Generation Sequencing data. Currently appointed as a Research Assistant at the EID department of Duke-NUS Medical School under the kind supervision of Dr. Mart Lamers, where I find myself curious enough to dive into the field of virus-host interactions with the aid of organoid technology.
Nicholas Yeo (BSc)
PhD candidate
Nicholas graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Microbiology) from the University of Queensland in 2016 and went on to be a Research Officer in the Microbial Immunity Lab in A*STAR ID Labs under Prof Lisa Ng. He was involved in the national COVID-19 response during the pandemic prior to undertaking his PhD with Duke-NUS. His research interests include viral immunopathogenesis and virus-host interactions.
Trena Lee (BSc)
PhD candidate
Trena obtained her BSc in Biological Sciences from the Nanyang Technology University in 2023. After completing her degree, she worked as a Project Officer under Associate Professor Xavier Roca, where she explored the role of alternative splicing in myeloid cells. Trena’s research interests include the involvement of immune cells in viral pathogenesis as well as disease progression caused by viruses.
