Alumni

Yasmin Gärtner began her career in the chemical industry before attending university, where she completed her M.Sc. in Biochemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Driven by a deep interest in understanding the mode of action of therapies to identify potential areas for improvement, she started her PhD project in the group of Professor Thomas Carell at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich (LMU) in June 2021. Her research focused on the targeted delivery of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), aiming to enhance therapeutic efficacy through improved selective uptake. Yasmin joined the RNAmed program in December 2023 and defended her thesis in June 2026. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in Munich.

Shounok Panja received his M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the Regional Centre for Biotechnology, Faridabad, India. He joined the RNAmed program in July 2024 and studied novel functions of RNA-guided DNA nucleases in gene expression regulation in pathogenic bacteria. Until November 2026, he was working in the group of Professor Cynthia Sharma at the Institute of Molecular Infection Biology, University of Würzburg.

PhD candidate in the Carell Group at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, focusing on on prebiotic chemistry. He investigates chemical pathways that could explain the formation of the first building blocks of life, such as amino acids, purines, and pyrimidines.