Lab Members
Volker Hovestadt, PhD
Assistant ProfessorJoined the lab: 2020
volker_hovestadt[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@hovestadt.bsky.social
Google Scholar
Volker is a computational biologist, cancer researcher, and principal investigator of the Hovestadt lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His main research interest is the genomic characterization of childhood brain tumors and leukemias, with the goal to better understand their developmental origins and tumor driving mechanisms. Volker grew up in southern Germany and studied Biochemistry and Systems Biology at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He then performed his PhD research with Dr. Peter Lichter at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. Volker set foot in Boston when joining the lab of Dr. Brad Bernstein at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute as a postdoctoral fellow in 2016. When not studying cancer genomes, Volker is often found outside enjoying American life with his three kids.
Salvatore Benfatto, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowJoined the lab: 2022
salvatore_benfatto[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@SaBenfatto
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Salvo is a bioinformatic researcher and computational biologist. His scientific interests orbit around cancer genomics, personalized medicine and complex systems. He grew up in southern Italy where he studied Biology and obtained his PhD at the University of Messina. After that he moved to Verona in the Functional Genomics Lab of Prof. Massimo Delledonne and then he joined the "DDC - DNA Damage in Cancer" team led by Dr. Balca Mardin at BioMed X Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. As postdoc in the Hovestadt Lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute he works at the edge of explainable artificial intelligence and cancer research, aiming to disentangle the DNA methylation patterns in brain tumors.
Sabina Stefan, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowJoined the lab: 2022
sabina_stefan[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@sabina_stefan
https://www.sabinastefan.com
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Sabina is a post-doctoral fellow in the Hovestadt lab, working on applying machine learning techniques to better prognosticate patients with medulloblastoma. She earned her PhD from Brown University in biomedical engineering under Prof Jonghwan Lee where she developed computational tools to gather insight from various forms of data, particularly related to the brain and cortical vasculature. In her free time, you’ll likely find her running, lifting, or playing with her pup.
Sander Lambo, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowJoined the lab: 2023
sander_lambo[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@lambosander
Google Scholar
Sander is a researcher from the Netherlands with a keen interest in Pediatric Oncology. He obtained his PhD for his work on Embryonal Tumors with Multilayered Rosettes that was carried out in the Group of Stefan Pfister at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg. After obtaining his PhD he moved to Vancouver to work on pediatric acute leukemia as a postdoc in the lab of Marco Marra at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. Currently, having moved to Boston he continues his work on both Embryonal Tumors with Multilayered Rosettes and Acute Leukemia using single cell epigenetics in the Hovestadt lab.
Ida Larsson, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowJoined the lab: 2024
ida_larsson[a]dfci.harvard.edu
Google Scholar
Ida is a computational biologist from Sweden. She received her MScEng in Medical Biotechnology from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 2018 and then moved on to doctoral studies at Uppsala University under the supervision of Professor Sven Nelander. She earned her PhD in 2023, which focused on modeling the intratumoral heterogeneity and plasticity of the adult brain tumor glioblastoma. Ida joined the Hovestadt Lab in January 2024 as a Postdoctoral Fellow, supported by a fellowship from the Swedish Research Council. Her work will leverage single cell technologies to understand the clonal evolution of medulloblastoma. In her free time, Ida enjoys outdoor activities like skiing, skating or hiking. She is also an avid foodie and looks forward to exploring all that Boston's food scene has to offer.
David Noël Hof
M.D. student, visitingJoined the lab: 2024
david_hof[a]dfci.harvard.edu
David is a sixth-year medical student at Charité Berlin. After an Erasmus Exchange year in Madrid and completing clerkships in Japan, he came to Boston to pursue research for his M.D. thesis. With three years of experience in clinical research at Charité, David sought to delve deeper into basic science. His current research focuses on the methylome of Embryonal Tumor with Multilayered Rosettes (ETMR). Outside the lab, David enjoys swimming, sailing, and windsurfing, making the most of his free time on the water.
We are hiring!
Postdoc / Studentyour_email[a]dfci.harvard.edu
We currently have openings for creative and aspiring computational biologists, physician scientists, and experimental biologists to join our team. If you are interested in studying pediatric cancer using single-cell genomics and computational algorithms, please get in touch with Volker at volker_hovestadt[a]dfci.harvard.edu.
Lab Alumni
Lisa Gabler, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowTime in the lab: 2022-2024
lisa_gabler[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@LisaGblr
Google Scholar
Fabio Boniolo, PhD
Postdoctoral fellowTime in the lab: 2022-2025
fabio_boniolo[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@FabioZB_I
Google Scholar
Til Steinicke
M.D. student, visitingTime in the lab: 2023-2024
til_steinicke[a]dfci.harvard.edu
@til_steinicke
Sizhu (Evelyn) Jiang
Master's studentTime in the lab: 2023-2024
sizhu_jiang[a]dfci.harvard.edu
Amelie Amann
M.D. student, visitingTime in the lab: 2023-2025
amelie_amann[a]dfci.harvard.edu
Liv Jürgensen
M.D. student, visitingTime in the lab: 2024
liv_juergensen[a]dfci.harvard.edu