CURRENT LAB MEMBERS
Carmen Gerlach (Principal Investigator)
Fascinated by the biology of the human body, I studied Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University in Leiden, the Netherlands (B.Sc. 2003 & M.Sc. 2005). As I wanted to see something of the world at the same time, I participated in an exchange program with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and performed an internship in parasitology that included field work in rural northern Ghana. My growing interest in immunology led me to perform my Master thesis in the lab of Rienk Offringa and Kees Melief at the Leiden University Medical Center, and during that time I realized that I wanted to continue my research career in this field. As PhD student in Ton Schumacher’s lab at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam (2005-2011), I got the chance to combine technological development with gaining deeper insights into basic immunological processes. Together with a few colleagues, I developed a cellular barcoding technology that allows in vivo tracking and fate mapping of single naive T cells. Using this technology, I established that while virtually all naive CD8 T cells give rise to both effector and memory cell progeny (Gerlach et al., J.Exp. Med. 2010), individual naive T cells nevertheless mount very distinct immune responses to facilitate robustness of the overall response (Gerlach et al., Science 2013). During my postdoc in Ulrich von Andrian’s lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA (2011-2017), I studied the memory CD8 T cell response in more detail, which led to the delineation of a novel subset, named ‘peripheral memory cells (Tpm)’ that has unique migratory, homeostatic and functional properties (Gerlach et al., Immunity 2016). To gain a better understanding of the computational aspects involved in the analysis of (immune) cells with the current high-dimensional single-cell technologies, I spent 8 months as visiting scholar in Nir Yosef’s lab at the University of California Berkeley in Berkeley, USA (2017). In November 2017, I was recruited as Assistant Professor to the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where I became Principal Researcher in 2022. In 2025, I was was recruited as W3 Professor to the University of Regensburg and the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy in Regensburg, Germany. Since then, I head a group working in two locations – Regensburg and Stockholm.
carmen.gerlach (AT) ki.se | carmen.gerlach (AT) lit.eu | KI profile page | LIT page | ORCID | LinkedIn | google scholar | @cgerlachlab.bsky.social
Lab members in Regensburg:
see https://lit.eu/research/research-divisions/tailored-t-cell-diversity/
Lab members in Stockholm below:
Mario Codemo (Lab manager)
My passion for biomedical research started when I watched the animated television series “Once Upon a Time… Life” and became fascinated with the human body biology. Since then I knew that what I wanted to do in my life was to study the biology of our cells in various different aspects. In order to pursue my dream I studied Biotechnologies (as Bachelor’s degree) and Medical Biotechnologies (as Master’s degree) at the University of Padova in Italy. During my Master’s thesis internship I became intrigued with bacteria and host-pathogen interactions, so I pursued my PhD at Karolinska Institutet in Birgitta Henriques-Normark group. I characterized membrane vesicles from the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae and their interactions with human epithelial and immune cells. Moreover, I assessed their potential use as vaccine candidate. In Carmen’s group my role is to assist in different research projects, as well as with laboratory management.
mario.codemo (AT) ki.se | KI profile page
Rosalie van Hulst (PhD student)
During high school biology classes always fascinated me because of the intricacies of human biology. This interest led me to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences at Leiden University in the Netherlands (2019-2022). During my studies, I discovered a passion for immunology and I decided to specialize further. I moved on to a Master’s in Biomedical Sciences at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, where I focused on Immunology and Cancer Biology (2022-2024). My Master’s included two research internships in which I decided to dive deeper into immunology. The first, conducted in Martijn Nawijn’s lab at the University Medical Centre Groningen, examined the impact of house dust mites and IL-13 on long-term bronchial epithelial cell cultures in asthma patients. For my second internship, I sought international experience and joined Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam’s group at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, where I characterized T and B cells in non-human primates. I enjoyed living in Sweden very much and knew I wanted to continue my career there. I also very much enjoyed learning more about adaptive immunity and my curiosity wasn’t satisfied yet. Therefore, in November 2024, I joined Carmen Gerlach’s lab as a PhD student to investigate CD8+ T cell responses during infections.
rosalie.van.hulst (AT) ki.se | KI profile page | LinkedIn
Hemalatha Babu (postdoc)
As a 10th grade kid I decided that I will be a scientist one day without even having the slightest knowledge on which field should I have interest in. Years later, I completed my under graduation in Zoology (2006-2009) at the University of Madras in Chennai, India. Following that, I have studied my Master’s in Zoology (2009-2011) from the same University of Madras from Chennai, India. During the course, I found that I have a fascination for immune cells while studying immunology and evolutionary biology. Upon completion of my master’s degree I joined as a PhD student in Dr. Hanna’s group the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis in Chennai, India (2013-2020). She introduced me to the field of HIV immunology and Virology, and I focused on the research of aging with HIV where I could investigate the effect of chronic HIV-1 infection and long-term antiretroviral therapy on inflamm-aging in a well-defined Indian cohort of people living with HIV along with other studies including detection and characterization of neutralizing antibodies in HIV-1 and HIV-2 infection. Immediately after my dissertation, I joined as a postdoc (2021-2023) in Dr. Velu’s laboratory the Emory National Primate Research Centre, Emory University, Atlanta, USA. I studied the dynamics of viral kinetics and innate and adaptive immune responses including by CD8 T cell and NK cell subsets upon challenge with SIV in a non-human primate model. My study focused on the effects of the cytokines IL-12 and IL-15 and their combination as an immunotherapy to attain viral remission and delayed viral rebound in the ART-treated macaques when treatment interrupted along with enhanced immune response and reduced viral reservoirs. I further wanted to study the CD8 T cells and its functional divergence during viral infection and diseases like cancer. For a second postdoc, I joined Carmen’s group in 2025 to study in collaboration with the group of Sara Gredmark Russ antiviral CD8 T cell immunity and its diversity in acute viral infection as well as in memory phase after human dengue virus infection.
hemalatha.babu.2 (AT) ki.se | KI profile page |
Annemarijn Offens (postdoc)
I initially studied Medicine but soon realized that I am more interested in biology and the mechanisms of disease. I completed my master’s in biomedical sciences at Radboud University in the Netherlands. During my studies, I developed a growing interest in immunology. Therefore, I joined Prof. Susanne Gabrielsson’s lab at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, first as a master student and later as a PhD student, to study the role of extracellular vesicles in initiating adaptive immune responses. After my PhD graduation in 2025, I joined Carmen’s group as a postdoc at the same institute to dive deeper into CD8 T cell immunity. Here, I study CD8 T cells in the tumor micro-environment, with special regard to the distinction of tumor-reactive and bystander T cells. What I enjoy most about my work is solving puzzles, designing experiments in the most optimal way to answer our research questions, having the freedom to learn new things, and being in an open, stimulating and diverse environment with scientists from all over the world.
annemarijn.offens (AT) ki.se | KI profile page |
PAST LAB MEMBERS in Stockholm
Jyoti Pokharel, PhD student, 2019-2026 | ORCID | LinkedIn
Ioana Sandu, postdoc, 2022-2024 | ORCID | LinkedIn
Iman Shryki, PhD student, 2018-2024
Anthonie Zwijnenburg, PhD student, 2017-2024 | LinkedIn
Natalia Ramirez Comet, Postdoc, 2018-2023 | LinkedIn
Maria-Nefeli Christakopoulou, Research Assistant, 2022 | LinkedIn
Wenning Zheng, Postdoc, 2020-2022 | Google Scholar I LinkedIn
Shaima Al Khabouri, Postdoc, 2020-2022 | ORCID | LinkedIn
Bharadwaja Velidendla, Research Assistant, 2019
PAST SHORT-TERM STUDENTS
2022/2023* Johannes Bastiaan Munting, Master student (Biomedicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden) (LinkedIn)
2022* Victor Avramov, Master student (Biomedical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands) (LinkedIn)
2021* Mara Henrich, Erasmus+ Master student (Biomedicine, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany) (LinkedIn)
2021* Christina Bekiari, Master student (Biomedicine, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden) (LinkedIn)
2021* Laura Krumm, Erasmus+ Master student (Molecular Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany) (LinkedIn)
2019* Kayleigh Ingersoll, exchange student (Immunology PhD program, Harvard University, USA) (LinkedIn)
