Introducing a new Research Internship Student of Bio2Q

We are delighted to welcome Ms. Julia Tsanis-Horniblow as a Research Internship Student of Bio2Q.

“Hi! My name is Julia Tsanis-Horniblow, and I recently graduated from Imperial College London with a BSc in Biochemistry. I’ve always had a deep fascination for how we can engineer living systems to elucidate the mechanisms by which the human body functions. My academic interests lie at the intersection between synthetic biology, organoid engineering, and microbiome science, with particular emphasis on how these three disciplines come together to model, manipulate, and understand the complex cellular communication that characterizes host–microbe interactions.
Before joining Bio2Q, my academic work focused on designing and interrogating biological systems from an engineering perspective. My final-year thesis centered around engineering bacteria for localized drug delivery to hypoxic tumor regions, which complimented my prior research projects focused around using CRISPR-Cas9 for microalgae metabolic engineering, RNAi-based phenotypic screening of C. elegans, characterizing recombinant protein interactions. These experiences strengthened my interest in how programmable genetic logic, metabolic rewiring, and cellular engineering can be used to reconstitute biological function in controlled environments.
In terms of my professional experience, I have experience working at GSK within its R&D Technology department, where I contributed to the development of a multi-omics platform used to build and execute bioinformatics pipelines. Additionally, I also have experience working in e-commerce and commercial sales at L’Oréal, where I supported the execution of multi-brand campaigns and performed data-driven performance analysis. Outside of research and work, I love travelling, spending time outdoors, and meeting new people!

Living and working in Japan has been an amazing adventure and joining Bio2Q has allowed me to move closer to the biological questions I’m most excited about. During my internship, I’ve had the opportunity to work across the Arita, Matsuzaki and Sato Labs, where I gained experience conducting metabolite analysis, working with cancer cell culture and organoids, and building colon-organoid bacterial co-culture systems. Together, these experiences have strengthened my understanding of the bidirectional relationship between the gut microbiome and human health.

What excites me most about Bio2Q is its unique environment: a space where organoid, immunology, metabolomic and quantum biology research comes together to explore human-microbiome interactions in a genuinely integrated way. Being surrounded by researchers at the forefront of their fields has been incredibly inspiring and I am extremely grateful for the experience I’ve had to learn from this amazing research institute! ”

“