People in the Hockemeyer Lab
Dirk Hockemeyer, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley
Postdoctoral Fellow in Genetics (2007-2012)
Advisor: Dr. Rudolf Jaenisch, Whitehead Institute
Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology (2002-2007)
Advisor: Dr. Titia de Lange, Rockefeller University
B.S. and M.S. in Biochemistry (1998-2002)
Advisor: Dr. Alfred Nordheim, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen
Preetha Markose
Staff Research Associate/Lab Manager
Research Assistant (2016-2019)
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Senior Research Fellow (2007-2011)
The Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, India
Bharathiar University, India (2007)
Research interests in the lab: (coming soon)
E-mail address:
markosep[at]berkeley.edu
Tianlin Lu
Staff Research Associate
Miami University, Oxford
B.S. in Biotechnology
Southwest University, China
Research interests in the lab:
I study telomere homeostasis and dynamics at a single-telomere resolution.
E-mail address:
tianlin.lu[at]berkeley.edu
John Boyle
Graduate Student
B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
Research interests in the lab:
Telomere length plays an integral role in both cancer and aging. My project investigates the effects of telomere length dynamics in tumorigenesis.
E-mail address:
Franziska Lorbeer
Graduate Student
Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
PhD Fellow
Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds
M.Sc. in Molecular Biosciences (Caner Biology)
Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg
B.S. in Molecular Biomedicine
Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms University Bonn
Research interests in the lab:
(coming soon)
E-mail address:
Timothy K. Turkalo
Graduate Student
Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
B.S. in Cell Biology
University of Kansas
Research interests in the lab:
I am interested in uncovering the genetic and epigenetic determinants for the activation of the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) pathway. ALT is a cancer-specific mechanism for proliferative immortality, thus identifying how the process initiates has substantial implications for potential therapeutics.
E-mail address:
Sara Seunga Choo
Graduate Student
Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
Research interests in the lab:
I study the mechanism of telomere length homeostasis in human embryonic stem cells and its disruption in Dyskeratosis Congenita
E-mail address:
Rebecca Bartke
Graduate Student
Ph.D. Student in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology '16
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Research interests in the lab:
I am investigating the roles of nucleases in telomere maintenance.
E-mail address:
Annika Martin
Graduate Student
Ph.D. Candidate in Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
B.S. in Biophysics '17
Bringham Young University
Research interests in the lab:
I am developing new methods to pair telomere length analysis with single-cell lineage tracing to investigate high-resolution telomere dynamics during cellular differentiation.
E-mail address:
Jesse Dunnack
Graduate Student
University of Connecticut
Research interest in the lab:
I am interested in the use of engineered stem cells to model disease states, particularly using human cerebral organoids. I hope to apply these methods to study the functional interactions between mutations associated with Parkinson's Disease.
E-mail address:
Hanqin Li
Postdoctoral Associate
Postdoctoral Associate at the Innovative Genomics Institute
University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. in Nueroscience
B.S. in Life Sciences
Nanjing University
Research interest in the lab:
E-mail address:My project studies the functions of genomic elements using high-throughput methods.
Antonio Maffia
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute of Molecular Genetics , University of Pavia, Italy
M.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology
University Of Pavia, Italy
Research interest in the lab:
Replicating telomeres can become a challenge for cells. My work will help understand the different
strategies employed to overcome this challenge.
E-mail address:
Alma Rechav Ben Natan
Undergraduate Researcher
B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology 
University of California, Berkeley
Class of 2021
Research interest in the lab:
I received the Summer Undergraduate Research fellowship to address the clinical challenges of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that are sensitive to PARP inhibitor (PARPi) in human haploid induced pluripotent stem cells.
E-mail address:
almarechav[at]berkeley.edu
Joshua Verdejo
Undergraduate Lab Assistant
B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, Neurobiology
Minor in Music
University of California, Berkeley
Class of 2021
Lujain Al-Dabbas
Undergraduate Lab Assistant
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Energy Concentration
Minor in Education
University of California, Berkeley
Class of 2020
Lauren Aguilar
Undergraduate Lab Assistant
B.S. in Molecular Environmental Biology
University of California, Berkeley
Class of 2022