PIs:
Sabine Costagliola
FNRS Research Director
IRIBHM Director
sabine.costagliola@ulb.be
phone # +32(0)2 555 6085
Sabine Costagliola completed a PhD in immunology at the Université Aix Marseille II (France) in 1991 and a PhD in Biomedical Science at ULB in 2000. She obtained a permanent position at FNRS as Research Associate in 2000. She is group leader and director of IRIBHM (Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Biologie Humaine et Moleculaire).
Mírian Romitti
ULB Associate Professor
Mirian.romitti@ulb.be
Mirian Romitti completed her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a focus on Endocrinology in 2014 at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Following her Ph.D., she joined the Costagliola Lab as a postdoctoral researcher, where she began working on the development of organoid models to study thyroid diseases, including hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer. Her contributions led to significant advances, earning her a « Chargé de recherche » then a « Scientific Collaborator » position at FNRS .During her tenure, she focused on creating a thyroid cancer model using mouse organoids developed in the lab. Additionally, as part of the Horizon 2020 SCREENED consortium, she collaborated with other research groups to develop tools for studying the toxic effects of Endocrine Disruptors on the thyroid gland. Recently, she made a breakthrough by developing a protocol that generates human thyroid organoids capable of producing thyroid hormones from human embryonic stem cells. This achievement marks a milestone in the field, offering new insights into the morphogenetic processes and gene regulatory networks involved in thyroid development. At IRIBHM, Mirian has significantly contributed to understanding the mechanisms regulating thyroid gland development and function, applying cutting-edge technologies like organoids to address thyroid disorders such as cancer and hypothyroidism. She has been an Associate Professor at ULB since October 1st, 2024.
Technicians:
Véronique Janssens
Lab Manager
janssens.veronique@ulb.be
phone # +32(0)2 555 4197
Véronique studied at the “Athénée des Pagodes” obtained her CESS (option Latin – math) in 1994. She followed the first year of pharmacology at the “Université Libre de Bruxelles” (ULB). From 1995 to 1998, she performed a graduate in Medical Biology in “Institut Paul Lambin” (UCL) (assay: “Huntington chorea”) and obtained her diploma as technician of laboratories. In 1998, she started to work in Sabine Costagliola lab as lab technician and she obtained a permanent position at ULB in 2003. In 2013, she obtained a career advancement at ULB after a competitive examination and an essay entitled : “Zebrafish: a new biomedical research tool at ULB?”. Véronique is our lab manager.
Laura Nebreda
Laura.Nebreda@ulb.be
Laura Nebreda obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Institut Paul Lambin in Brussels. During her master’s thesis at the Ludwig Institute, she discovered a deep passion for biotechnology and molecular biology. After graduating, she began her career at IRIBHM, contributing to various molecular biology and transgenesis projects. Since September 2024, she has embarked on a new scientific journey, working on an exciting project involving lung organoids derived from embryonic stem cells, under the supervision of Mirian Romitti.
Jessica D’Amico
Jessica.damico@ulb.be
Jessica completed her graduate studies in Medical Biology at the « Institut Paul Lambin » (UCL) in Brussels and obtained her diploma as a laboratory technician. After working for 10 years in a medical analysis laboratory, she joined Sabine Costagliola’s lab in September 2024 as a lab technician, where she focuses on modeling congenital thyroid diseases using induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC).
Postdoctoral Fellows:
Eduardo Rios
eduardo.andres.rios.morris@ulb.be
Eduardo Rios is a postdoctoral fellow in Costagliola’s lab. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry from Andrés Bello University in Chile. He then moved to Brazil to pursue his PhD in ‘ Morphological Sciences: Developmental Biology’ at the Institute of Biomedicine of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). During all these years, Eduardo worked with zebrafish as a model to understand the mechanisms by which cell adhesion controls some aspects of gastrulation and cell behaviour during development.
After his PhD, Eduardo went to CRBM/CNRS in Montpellier – France to complete his first postdoc. There he deepened the mechanisms of cell adhesion in cancer aggressiveness using in vivo and in vitro models. He then returned to Brazil, where he obtained a position as visiting professor at the UFRJ Faculty of Medicine. There he worked as a researcher studying the effects of exposure to different endocrine disrupting chemicals on thyroid physiology using different in vivo models.
Eduardo started in Costagliola’s lab in March of 2023 working in thyroid cancer using thyroid organoids models.
Matthieu Duot
matthieu.duot@ulb.be
Matthieu Duot started his post-doc at the Costagliola Lab in October 2024. He obtained his Master’s degree in Health Biology at the University of Nantes, where he specialised in genetics and genomics and conducted a translational study on the rare genetic disease POIKTMP. During his PhD, Matthieu focused on genetic post-transcriptional regulation during eye lens development and conducted research at the University of Rennes in France and the University of Delaware in the United States. He is now collaborating with Costagliola’s team to generate thyroid organoids to study a rare genetic disorder, which is thyroid-stimulating hormone resistance syndrome, caused by a mutation in a non-coding STR sequence
PhD Students:
Daniela Aparicio
daniela.aparicio.quinonez@ulb.be
Daniela Aparicio graduated from a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala in Guatemala City. After that she moved to Leuven, Belgium and completed a master’s degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the KU Leuven in 2021. Passionate about molecular developmental biology, she studied octopus neurodevelopment for her master thesis. Later, interested in biomedical research with a less confidential experimental model, she joined the Costagliola lab in 2022 as a PhD student. Her project is focused on modeling congenital thyroid diseases with human thyroid organoids.
Meghna Shankar
Parakkal.Meghna.Shankar@ulb.be
Meghna graduated from the University College Dublin, Ireland in 2018. The title of her MSc thesis was « Characterisation of an autosomal recessive blind zebrafish model, with a putative mutation in the gene encoding abca4b (photoreceptor cell–specific ATP-binding cassette transporter) ». She has previously worked in Bangalore, India, in genetic testing and NGS based diagnostic laboratories at the Centre for Human Genetics and Medgenome Labs Private limited as a Research Associate. Meghna has an undergraduate degree Bachelor of engineering in Biotechnology from PES University Bangalore, India. She joined the Costagliola laboratory in 2018 for a PhD to work on a zebrafish model to study thyroid cell specification within the foregut endoderm.
Alessandra Boggian
alessandra.boggian@ulb.be
Alessandra obtained a bachelor’s in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Ferrara (2019). Subsequently, she graduated in a master’s in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam (2021). She conducted her research projects at the Amsterdam University Medical Center (UMC) and the Swammerdam Institute for Life Science (SILS). She became interested in regenerative medicine and developmental biology during her project in cardiac regeneration and engineered tissue production and modeling. She started her PhD project in November 2022 in under the supervision of Mirian Romitti. In her project, she studies the role of insulin in the development of lung organoids derived from embryonic stem cells.
Laura Chomette
Laura.Chomette@ulb.ac.be
Laura Chomette graduated from medical school at ULB in 2015 and specialized in Cardiology in 2018. She is currently a PhD student at the IRIBHM and Erasme Hospital, supervised by Pr Antoine Bondue and funded by the Fonds Erasme. The title of her PhD is Heritable Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: molecular insights through genetics and induced pluripotent stem cells.
Ivan verla Tientcheu Ngaffi
verla.tientcheu.ngaffi@ulb.be
Ivan earned his Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Biology in 2020 and his Master’s in 2022 from the Université des Montagnes in Cameroon. Driven by his passion for biomedical research, he pursued a second Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences with a research focus at the Université libre de Bruxelles, graduating in 2024. His thesis centered on developing a human thyroid cancer organoid model using human embryonic cancer stem cells carrying the BRAFV600E mutation. To continue this research, Ivan joined the COSTAGLIOLA lab as a PhD student in 2024.