Dieter Willbold

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Dieter Willbold (* 1965 in Gerlenhofen ) is a German biochemist and structural biologist. He is a full professor and head of the Institute for Physical Biology at the University of Düsseldorf and Director of the Institute for Biological Information Processes at Forschungszentrum Jülich . 

Career

Willbold studied biochemistry from 1985 to 1991 at the Universities of Tübingen, Bayreuth and Boulder (Colorado, USA). He received his doctorate in 1994 from the University of Bayreuth . He stayed there as a research assistant at the Bayreuth Institute for Biopolymers, interrupted by a research stay at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1998 he completed his habilitation in Bayreuth in the subject of biophysical chemistry.

From 1998 to 2001 Willbold headed his own independent working group for “Structural and Evolutionary Biochemistry” at the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Jena (today the Leibniz Institute for Aging Research ). In 2001 he accepted an extraordinary professorship for "NMR Spectroscopy of Biological Macromolecules" at the University of Düsseldorf. In 2004 he was offered a full professorship at the University of Leipzig, which he refused, in order to instead accept the appointment of the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf as the early successor to Detlev Riesner . Since 2004 he has been a full professor and chair holder of physical biology and heads the university institute of the same name.

Since 2005 he has also been director of the Institute for Biological Information Processes (IBI-7: Structural Biochemistry, previously: ICS-7 (Institute of Complex Systems)) at Forschungszentrum Jülich and head of the Biomolecular NMR Center on the campus there, which was founded in the same year.

research

His main areas of work include the analysis and elucidation of the structure and dynamics of proteins in order to decipher how they perform their function in living cells. The thematic focus is on proteins that are relevant for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's . Another research focus is on proteins that are involved in the cellular process of autophagy . A methodological focus is on the use of the method of NMR spectroscopy in combination with other structural biological and biophysical methods. Willbold also leads extensive application-oriented projects in the field of Alzheimer's research. This includes the development of a new therapeutic approach aimed at the targeted elimination of toxic oligomers, as well as a biomarker-based diagnostic procedure.

Awards

  • 1995 Research Prize from the University of Bayreuth
  • 2000 Gerhard Hess Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Memberships and functions

Willbold is the founder of the biomolecular NMR network in NRW bio-N³MR. Furthermore, he has been a member of the board of directors of the Biological-Medical Research Center (BMFZ) at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf since 2000. Since 2008 he has been co-spokesman of the NRW research school BioStruct and since 2012 co-spokesman for the iGRASP graduate school.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alzheimer's dementia in the thematic portal of Forschungszentrum Jülich. In: www.fz-juelich.de. Retrieved January 3, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Willbold, Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biochemist and structural biologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Gerlenhofen