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Recent Publications of Network Partners relevant to ReceptEUR
Ivo Touw is at the Department of Hematology, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He studied Biology at the University of Amsterdam (graduation in 1981) and did his PhD training at the Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center (PhD in 1986). His main research interest is directed towards acute myeloid leukemia and related disorders, in particular the cellular defects and signalling abnormalities underlying these complex diseases. In 1994, his group discovered that nonsense mutations in the receptor for the haematopoietic growth factor receptor G-CSF found in patients with severe congenital neutropenia predispose for progression to acute myeloid leukemia. Ivo Touw is a councilor of the European Hematology Association (EHA) and as of 2005 associate Editor of Haematologica/The Hematology Journal, the official scientific journal of EHA. In 2005, he co-founded Skyline Diagnostics, a start-up company involved in the development of cancer diagnostics based on gene expression profiling.
Stefan Constantinescu is a Full Member of the Christian de Duve Institute of Cellular Pathology (ICP) and Head of the Signal Transduction Unit. He is a permanents investigator of the F.N.R.S. Belgium and Associate Professor at University Catholic of Louvain, Brussels. He is also a Faculty (Associate Member) of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. He has received a PhD in Virology from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest and has conducted postdoctoral research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, M.I.T. (Prof. Harvey Lodish) where he was awarded an Anna Fuller fellowship in Molecular Oncology (1996-1997) and an award from The Medical Foundation (1999). Since 2000 he established his laboratory at ICP. He was awarded the "Robert de Hovre" prize in Immunology in 2003. Stefan Constantinescu's contributions revolve around the structure and function of the cytokine receptors, the roles and structures of transmembrane and juxtamembrane sequences in assembling and activating cytokine receptors, and the role of mutated receptors and JAKs in oncogenesis. Recently, in collaboration with William Vainchenker his team was among the first teams to report the presence of the JAK2 V617F mutation in myeloproliferative diseases, to study signalling by this mutant and to report that JAK1 and Tyk2 are activated by homologous mutations.
Jan Tavernier obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Ghent University (UG) in 1984 on the cloning and characterization of interferon and interleukin genes. In the same year he moved to Biogent, an affiliate of Biogen, N.V. focusing mainly on the study of tumour necrosis factor. From 1987 to 1996, he was employed at Roche Research Gent, where he oriented research towards the biology of cytokine receptors and signal transduction. In 1996, he returned to academia at the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, expanding and applying cytokine receptor-based research. Dr Tavernier has mapped the inducible promoter of the IFN-beta gene (Nature, 301, 634-636, 1983) has identified the first common chain shared between cytokine receptors, i.e. bc for GM-CSFR, IL3R and IL5R (Cell, 66, 1175-1184, 1991) and has established the first mammalian two-hybrid system with screening capability (Nat. Cell. Biol. 3, 1114-1119, 2001; Science 298, p1841, 2002).
Sandra Pellegrini graduated from Rome University in Biological Sciences, obtained her PhD at New York University, was an EMBO fellow at ICRF (laboratory of G. R. Stark), London, UK and joined the Dept. of Immunology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris in 1989. She is DR2 (Director of research) at INSERM and head of the Unit of Cytokine Signaling. She has played a leading role in unraveling the involvement of JAKs in helical cytokine signalling and successfully used somatic cell genetics to isolate IFN-response mutants and established the role of Tyk2 in type I IFN signaling. Her group has dissected the molecular determinants of the Tyk2/IFNAR1 complex, uncovered the chaperone role of Tyk2, and addresses key issues related to regulation, subcellular localization, domain functions, substrate specificity and interactors of Tyk2. She recently identified novel partners of JAK proteins.
Iris Behrmann has a degree in biology and a PhD degree (Dr. rer. nat., 1992, "summa cum laude") of the University of Bielefeld. From 1990 to 1994, she worked with Peter H. Krammer (DKFZ Heidelberg), where she cloned the death receptor APO-1/Fas/CD95. Between 1994 and 2003, she was group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry headed by Peter C. Heinrich at the RWTH Aachen Medical School. Since this time her research has been devoted to signal transduction of interleukin-6-type cytokines. Her projects have been funded by the DFG and by the SFB542. Since 2004, Iris Behrmann is professor of biochemistry at the University of Luxemburg. Within the "Laboratoire de Biologie et Physiologie Intégrée" her work on Jak/STAT-mediated signal transduction is being continued.
Gerhard Müller-Newen, Chemist, received a PhD degree in 1993 from the Institute for Physiological Chemistry, University of Cologne (Prof. W. Stoffel). He has conducted Postdoctoral research at the Institute for Biochemistry, University Hamburg (Prof. Georg W. Mayr) and at RWTH Aachen (Prof. P. C. Heinrich). Since 1995, he joined the faculty as Assistant Professor and then Associate professor at the Institute of Biochemistry, RWTH Aachen.
Olli Silvennoinen is Director of the Institute of Medical Technology, University of Tampere since 2001, and adjunct Chief Physician at the Clinical Microbiology department of the Tampere University Hospital. He has received an MD in 1987 and a PhD in Medical Sciences in 1988 from the University of Helsinki, which awarded him the title of Docent in Cell Biology in 1995. He has conducted Postdoctoral research at St Jude Children`s Research Hospital, Memphis, US, where he discovered the JAK-STAT pathway. He is also Specialist in Clinical Microbiology (University of Tampere, 1998). In 1995 he became Senior Scientist, Academy of Finland, University of Helsinki and since 1996 he is Professor of Molecular Immunology and Medical Biochemistry at University of Tampere.
Jim Johnston was a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. John O'Shea's laboratory, where he played a key role in the elucidation of the JAK-STAT pathway and the description of its role in severe combined immunodeficiencies (SCID and XSCID, Nature (1994) 370:151-3; Science (1994) 266:1042-5; EMBO J. (1999) 18:1549-58). The Johnston Lab has a long track history of examining the regulation of cytokine responses by a novel family of inhibitory genes, termed suppressors of cytokine signalling (SOCS), that regulate receptor turnover and recycling, and the half-life of other signalling intermediates. The work examines the functional genomics of these genes by establishing cell lines and animal models that inducibly express these genes and analyzing ubiquitination of substrates such as Jak1, Jak3, IL-2 receptor components. In particular we have mice expressing a SOCS3 transgene specifically expressed in lymphocytes and MEF cells with SOCS3 or SOCS1 deleted and as well Ba/F3 cells expressing tet regulated intermediates.
Rob Ruijtenbeek is Vice President Science and Research within Pamgene International B.V. (‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands), where he performs proteomics research on microarray applications in kinase research and other proteomics areas. This work has resulted in the availability of microarrays of immobilized peptides, being kinase substrates, which are applied by PamGene's customers in pharmaceutical R&D for profiling kinase activities in cell or tumour extracts. To complement this approach, antibody arrays are being used to develop miniaturized and multiplex phosphoELISA assays. Furthermore microarray based nuclear hormone receptor assays have been developed. Prior to joining PamGene he worked in the area of medicinal chemistry and asthma research at the faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 2001. To investigate new approaches for blocking signal transduction of the high affinity receptor for IgE in mast cells, peptidomimetics were designed and synthesized. To test the inhibitory potencies of these compounds a binding assay was developed based on surface plasmon resonance and used for screening the compounds synthesized. Peptide-like inhibitors were successfully identified.
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Page last edited on 08-02-2012
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