معرفی
Nicolas Battich is Principal Investigator of the Quantitative Cell Biology group at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus, Helmholtz Munich, Germany. Since August 2022 he leads an interdisciplinary team that integrates single-cell genomics, advanced imaging and machine-learning to understand how nuclear organization shapes transcriptional programs during stem-cell differentiation.
Education:
- Ph.D. in Systems Biology, Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich (2010–2016)
- B.Sc. (First-class) in Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Glasgow, Scotland (2010)
- Research visits/master projects at AstraZeneca (Macclesfield, UK), AMOLF (Amsterdam, NL), the Sainsbury Laboratory (John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK) and other institutions during 2007–2009
Research interests centre on the systems biology of stem-cell differentiation. The lab investigates how membrane-less nuclear organelles (e.g., nucleoli, nuclear speckles, PML bodies) spatially organise the genome and modulate transcriptional variability. Using single-cell RNA-seq with temporal resolution, CRISPR perturbations and high-content confocal microscopy, the team builds quantitative predictive models and applies deep-learning to uncover how chromatin architecture and nuclear condensates jointly control gene-expression dynamics.
Funding & awards:
- ERC Starting Grant (€1.5 M, 2021)
- DFG grant (€0.5 M, ongoing)
- Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017)
- Swiss National Science Foundation Early Mobility Fellowship (2017)
- University of Zurich Faculty of Science Doctoral Thesis Prize (2016)
- Multiple EMBO and SystemsX poster prizes (2013–2019)
The Battich Lab currently receives core funding from Helmholtz Munich and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Ongoing projects combine CRISPR interference/activation screens with AI-driven image analysis to map causal links between nuclear condensate dynamics and lineage-specific gene-regulatory networks.
