Meet the team
Principal investigators
Prof. dr. Tom Taghon
Principal investigator
(T-cell development)
Prof. dr. Tom Taghon (PhD in Medical Sciences, Ghent University) did a postdoc in the lab of Dr. Ellen Rothenberg at Caltech (California, USA) and is currently a full professor at Ghent University. Since 2012, he has been leading the Taghon Lab and his ambitions are to drive the research of human thymocyte development, and to pioneer the study of T lymphocytes in health and disease. Prof. dr. Tom Taghon has over 130 publications, among which many in high impact journals such as Science, Nature Immunology and Immunity.
Prof. dr. Kevin Braeckmans
Principal investigator
(Photoporation)
Prof. Kevin Braeckmans is co-director of the Lab. of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy, where he is leading the Biophotonics Research Group. His research focuses on (1) optics technologies for studying the biophysical behavior of nanomedicines, (2) light-based diagnostics and (3) light-triggered drug delivery. In 2015 he received a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant (NANOBUBBLE), followed by an ERC PoC Grant (INTRACYTE) in 2021. He is chairman of the Ghent Light Microscopy (GLiM) core facility, and is a co-founder and CSO of the spin-off company Trince. Prof. Kevin Braeckmans is a co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications in the nanomedicine field, many of which were published in highly regarded journals, including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, etc.
Post-doctoral researchers
Dr. Kai Ling Liang
Post-doctoral researcher
(iPSC hematopoietic differentiation)
Dr. Kai Ling Liang is a EU long-term resident from Malaysia. In 2016, he was conferred a PhD degree in cancer biology by University College Cork, Ireland and have joined Taghon’s research group since then as a postdoctoral researcher. Dr. Kai Ling Liang has a profound research interest in normal and malignant hematopoiesis. Currently, his research focus is using iPSCs to understand human hematopoiesis and to address hematopoietic disorders.
Dr. Jana Ramon
Post-doctoral researcher
(Photoporation)
Dr. Jana Ramon started her bachelor in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2013. She subsequently obtained her master’s degree in Drug Development in 2018 with Summa cum Laude. In October 2018, Jana Ramon started her PhD in the Laboratory of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy. In the same year, she obtained a PhD fellowship of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO aspirant). In February 2023, she obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow in the same lab.
Dr. Jeffrey Aalders
Post-doctoral researcher
(iPSC hematopoietic differentiation)
Dr. Jeffrey Aalders is originally born in the Netherlands. In June 2023, he completed his PhD at Ghent University. During his PhD research he generated several human induced pluripotent stem cell lines which were employed to generate cardiac disease models. In August 2024, he joined Taghon’s research group as a postdoctoral researcher. Currently, he is optimizing CAR T cell differentiation from human iPSCs as part of the NOVISTEM project.
Ph.D. researchers
Chloë De Clercq
Ph.D. researcher
(Photoporation)
Chloë De Clercq obtained her Bachelor’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2020, after which she began her Master’s in Drug Development in which she functioned as a spokesperson for Drug Development students. Chloë performed her Master’s Thesis entitled ‘Post Plasmalemmal Perturbation: How VNB-mediated photoporation could affect cell homeostasis’ at the Lab. Of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy under the supervision of Prof. Kevin Braeckmans. The subject fascinated her to such an extent that she returned to the Lab for a Ph.D. after she graduated with her master’s with great distinction in 2022.
Amin Ahmad
Ph.D. researcher
(Photoporation)
Amin Ahmad obtained is Bachelor’s degree in the physical sciences with the greatest distinction in 2020 at Université Catholique de Louvain, after which he started his Master’s degree in Biophysics, Biochemistry and Biotechnology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He performed his master thesis at the laboratory for Nanobiophysics (KULeuven), where he worked on a nanostructured and light-addressable 3D cell culture platform for electrogenic cells. In parallel, he also registered as a guest student at the UGent, where he specifically followed the biopharmacy courses offered by the Laboratory for General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy (LGBPP). After having obtained his Master’s degree with the greatest distinction, Amin started as a PhD researcher at the LGBPP in February 2023, working on the delivery of large effectors to iPSCs through photoporation.
Bioinformaticians
Tom Putteman obtained an advanced bachelor of bioinformatics in 2020. Tom then joined the research group of professor Tom Taghon, where he supports the team by providing bioinformatics expertise in the analysis of both bulk and single cell sequencing data.