Alina joined the Zeller lab in 2026 as a postdoc after completing her PhD in Maria Bernabeu’s group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Barcelona and Heidelberg University. During her PhD she was studying host-parasite interactions in cerebral malaria utilizing a human in vitro microfluidic blood-brain barrier model in combination with single-cell RNA sequencing. Before that she completed an MSc in Molecular Biotechnology at Heidelberg University with thesis work conducted in Wolfgang Huber’s group at EMBL.

In the Zeller lab, Alina will study the tumor tissue microbiome, focusing on the interactions between host cell-associated microbes, tumor cells, and the immune microenvironment. Her research aims to establish a molecular understanding of how distinct microbial populations influence host cell transcriptional states and shape tumor–microbiome–immune niches.