News on Dönertas Group

Prasoon Pandey joins the lab as an LGSA Fellow

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome Prasoon Pandey, who joins the lab with a PhD fellowship from the Leibniz Graduate School on Aging (LGSA) — a joint programme between the Leibniz Institute on Aging (FLI) and Friedrich Schiller University (FSU) Jena, running since 2006.

Great to have you with us, Prasoon!

Q&A in Communications Biology: Decoding ageing

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Melike was featured in a Q&A in Communications Biology, “Decoding ageing: Handan Melike Dönertaş on microbiomes, AI and improving lifespan and healthspan”.

The conversation covers the lab’s research interests — using computational approaches (machine learning, predictive modelling, causal inference, bioinformatics) alongside microbiota-transfer experiments to understand how the microbiome shapes ageing — and traces the path from MSc work on evolutionary and comparative genomics at Middle East Technical University, where the selection shadow idea first reframed ageing as a phenotype distinct from development, to starting the lab at FLI in January 2023.

Ulaş awarded Joachim Herz Stiftung Add-on Fellowship

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Huge congrats to Ulaş Işıldak for the Add-on Fellowship from Joachim Herz Stiftung!

Ulaş develops computational methods to study the gut microbiome in aging. With the fellowship, he’ll learn new experimental skills, generate more data, and validate his results — bringing wet-lab depth to his computational programme.

Ready. Set. Experiment! — wetlab is open

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ready. Set. Experiment!

Special thanks to our amazing member İsmail Güderer for being the driving force behind making this wetlab a reality. Time to get those pipettes moving.