Hanka started her scientific journey in the laboratory of Dr. Alena Panicucci Zíková in České Budějovice. She tried to answer the question of the function of a newly discovered additional subunit in a highly evolutionary conserved F1 part of complex V in the mitochondrial respiratory chain. With this project she got passionate about the unique model organism Trypanosoma brucei. Therefore, she decided to join our laboratory for her PhD to work on the tip of the trypanosome flagellum employing molecular biology, microscopy and biochemistry techniques. Hanka recently defended her PhD thesis and continues to work on her projects as a postdoctoral fellow.

Kateryna earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology and Biotechnology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine. In her bachelor’s thesis, she studied post-translational modifications of axonemal microtubules. During her master’s studies in Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Virology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Kateryna focused on katanin-like proteins as potential sensors of tubulin glutamylation in primary cilia. Currently, she continues with this project as a research assistant.

Karin is a biochemistry graduate from Comenius University in Bratislava. She completed her master’s thesis in the Laboratory of Protozoology, led by Prof. Anton Horvath, where she studied the molecular mechanisms of thermotolerance in insect trypanosomatids. She spent one semester as an Erasmus exchange student at Freie Universität Berlin, gaining experience with super-resolution microscopy. Upon completing her studies, she briefly worked as a laboratory technician in the research group of Dr. Daniela Gašperikova at the Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. There, she developed skills in handling mammalian primary cell lines. Driven by her interest in microscopy and previous experience from the Laboratory of Protozoology, she decided to pursue a doctoral degree in our group. Here, she studies the role of flagellar distal end proteins in axonemal assembly and length regulation using a combination of biochemistry and microscopy techniques.

After completing his undergraduate studies at Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague, Luděk joined Dr. Gaia Pigino at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden to pursue his PhD studies. Here he encountered cilia and flagella for the first time, employing correlative light and electron microscopy to reveal how the intraflagellar transport is organized. After obtaining his doctorate, he worked under supervision of Prof. Stefan Diez from Technische Universität Dresden to study intraflagellar transport motors in vitro. Luděk joined our lab in July 2018 to study flagellum assembly using combination of imaging and biochemistry approaches.

Maruška completed her master’s studies in the field of parasitology at Charles University in  2020. During her undergraduate years, she worked in the laboratory of doc. Vladimír Hampl, where she focused on the assembly of iron-sulfur clusters in Monocercomonoides exilis, a unique eukaryotic organism with no mitochondria. As a parasitologist, she is naturally curious about the cell biology and biochemistry of various protists, and she got intrigued by the versatility of Trypanosoma brucei as a model organism. Therefore she decided to pursue a PhD in our lab, focusing on further characterization of distal-end localizing proteins of the trypanosome flagellum by advanced microscopy techniques.

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