Peter Becker
Peter B. Becker ( born September 12, 1958 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a German biochemist and molecular biologist. He received the 2005 doped with 1.55 million euros Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for his research into the chromatin structure and its role in the activity of genes.
Biography
Peter Becker studied from 1978 to 1983 Biology at the Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg and graduated in 1984 with a diploma. His dissertation was carried out in 1987 with summa cum laude at the German Cancer Research Center ( DKFZ) in Heidelberg with Professor G. Schütz. The title of his thesis was " In vivo analysis of protein / DNA interactions at regulatory sequences of the tyrosine - transferase gene ". From 1987 to 1988 he was a research associate at the DKFZ and from 1988 to 1991 visiting scientist at the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute under Professor Carl Wu in the U.S.. From 1991 to 1999 he was a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory ( EMBL) in Heidelberg. 1996 and his habilitation with obtaining the " Venia legendi " specialist molecular biology. Since 1999 he has C4 -Professor of Molecular Biology at the Adolf- Butenandt - Institute of the Medical Faculty of the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich.
Work
Peter Becker operates mainly in the structure of chromatin, which is the organization of the DNA into the cells of the eukaryotic organisms. He explores the question to what extent the organization of chromatin affects the function of DNA and thus the genes. One of the main results is the dynamics of histones in the DNA that can be moved to the active portions of the DNA.