Team members

Sandra Irmisch, Dr.

Assistant Professor

Sandra obtained her diploma in Biochemistry at the Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg (Germany). She completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (Jena, Germany) in 2014 where she worked in the group of Jonathan Gershenzon and together with Tobias Koellner on characterizing the formation and function of herbivore induced volatiles of poplar trees. In 2015, she was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society for outstanding scientific achievements. Sandra continued as a postdoctoral scientist and Feodor Lynen Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation with Joerg Bohlmann at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) from 2015 to 2021, where she started to work on the biosynthesis of the anti-diabetic montbretin A. Currently she is an Assistant Professor in the Plant Science Cluster at the Institute of Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Netherlands.

Charlotte Hijmans

PhD Student

Charlotte studies the production, transport, and storage of montbretin A (MbA), a promising antidiabetic compound produced by the bulb-like organs of the ornamental plant montbretia. Specifically, she investigates the potential of transport engineering to enhance scalable MbA production in heterologous hosts. Her work also explores a range of imaging techniques to study MbA localization. Furthermore, she is developing a tissue culture platform to simplify plant propagation, study development and enable transformation.

Charlotte holds a BSc in Plant Sciences and an MSc in Plant Biotechnology from Wageningen University, where she specialized in the use of plants for human and animal health. Motivated by a long-standing interest in medicinal plant research, she began her PhD at the Institute of Biology, Leiden in 2022.

Filipe Cabrita Cruz

PhD Student

Filipe investigates the diverse chemical landscape within underexplored plant below-ground organs. He aims to discover new chemistry with an emphasis on identifying bioactive compounds with promising therapeutic potential. Further, by elucidating their biosynthetic pathways, he aims to expand the repertoire of available enzymatic tools to produce new compounds and support drug development.

Filipe holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Warwick, where he explored the cell biology of natural rubber biosynthesis in his final research project. He later completed a master’s degree in biology at Leiden University where he worked on engineering yeast for montbretin A production, and conducted research on the symbiosis between cycads and cyanobacteria. He started his PhD at the Institute of Biology Leiden in 2025.

Current MSc and BSc students

  • Maria Baltariu, MSc

  • Annisha (Sasha) Shanty, MSc

  • Anne Oskamp, MSc

  • Ao Mo, MSc

  • Yuri Hoogerwerf, BSc

  • Naomi van Rooij, BSc

Past Members

Livia Pietrow (technician 2024-25; MSc, 2024), Romy Jansen (BSc, 2024), Max De Theije (BSc, 2024), Loïs Gall (MSc, 2024), Jasper Smits van Waesberghe (MSc, 2023-24), Amber Fijn (MSc, 2023-24), Filipe Cabrita Cruz (MSc, 2023-2024), Floor Didden (MSc, 2022-24), Sophia Karon (Intern, Sigma Clermont, France, 2023-24), Femke Feijth (BSc, 2023-24), Anna van Beusekom (BSc, 2023-24), Britt Veugelers (BSc, 2023), Britt van Randeraad (BSc, 2023), Julian ten Hoopen (MSc, 2023), Klara Schmidt (MSc, 2022-23), Fernanda Santos Reginaldo (2022), Martijn Verkuilen (MSc, 2022), Noa Mutsters (MSc, 2021-22), Dylan Perera (Exchange student, UBC, Canada, 2022)