Thomas Tuschl

Thomas Tuschl ( born June 1, 1966 in Altdorf bei Nürnberg ) is a German biochemist and molecular biologist who has been working in the field of RNA research.

Life

After studying chemistry in Regensburg and Grenoble Tuschl received his doctorate with a thesis at the Max - Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen in 1995. He then spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, USA.

In 1999 he returned to Göttingen as a group leader, this time at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. There he gained an international reputation in the field of genetic research when he developed his research group, the method of RNA interference, that did not work before in vertebrates, including human cells. This makes it possible to " disable " individual genes by short strands of RNA synthesis are introduced into the cell, there to destroy the mRNA in question and thus disable a single gene. Possible future applications of this method can be found in the treatment of tumors or hereditary diseases. Also, the function of individual genes can be better explored. Therefore, RNA interference is considered groundbreaking technology in genetic research.

Followed in 2003 by Tuschl a reputation as a professor and head of laboratory at the Rockefeller University in New York, where he has continued his research. It deals in particular there with micro - RNA, small RNA segments that are formed by a cell itself and cause similar to the introduced synthetic RNA strands RNA interference there. In 2009 he was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

A professor at the Free University of Berlin refused Tuschl from early 2009, which led to a public discharged dispute between the researcher and the university administration.

While an article in the Star already saw it in 2004 "on the way to the Nobel Prize ", Tuschl was at the award ceremony in 2006 from empty, which his mentor Phillip Allen Sharp "Life is not fair," commented.

Prices

For his work Tuschl received several national and international awards.

  • 2008: Ernst Jung Prize
  • 2007: Max Delbruck Medal, Berlin
  • 2007: Karl Heinz Beckurts Price
  • 2005: Ernst Schering Prize, Berlin
  • 2005: Meyenburg Award, Heidelberg
  • 2005: Dr. Albert Wander Memorial Prize, Bern, Switzerland
  • 2003: Mayor 's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, New York, USA
  • 2003: Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, The Wiley Foundation, USA
  • 2003 Newcomb Cleveland Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA
  • 2002: Eppendorf Young Investigator Award, Hamburg
  • 2002: Teambuilding Wilhelmy Weberbank Prize, Berlin
  • 1999: BioFuture winners
Biochemistry Cambridge (Massachusetts) Klung Wilhelmy Weberbank Award Integrated Authority File
773654
de