Before joining the Jazwinska Group, Verena had worked for both companies and academic research institutions on various topics and using different models. She has experience with human blood, beagles, rabbits, Drosophila, and C. elegans. It was with the Jazwinska Group, 14 years ago, that she began working with the zebrafish model.

Verena is a professional lab technician, and she started working as an intern at Sandoz and Wander. She initially worked on radioimmunoassays to study hormones and later transitioned to pharmacology, where she used beagle and rabbit models to test and develop drugs for managing blood pressure.

After three years in this position, she decided to take her next step and joined Roche to work on blood cell lines. After many years in Basel, she then moved to Bern to work at the Theodor Kocher Institute, which focuses on finding solutions against rheumatism. Later, at the Inselspital in Bern, she studied ophthalmological issues and, together with a lab assistant, developed a PCR to detect toxoplasmosis and herpes in the eye.

After a year and a half at the Inselspital, Verena wanted to change the field, and she was hired at the veterinary hospital, still in Bern, in the parasitology department. There she worked on many different projects, from using cellular microbiology to isolate DNA and to understanding and fighting echinococcosis. After six years, she arrived at Fribourg and worked for many years with the C. elegans model. Then, Verena got the opportunity to work one year on the Drosophila model before getting hired at the Jazwinska group.