Peter Walter (biochemist)

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Peter Walter, 2015

Peter Walter (born  December 5, 1954 in Berlin ) is a German - American biochemist and molecular biologist . He has been a professor at the University of California, San Francisco since 1983 and has also worked for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997 . For his research on the folding and transport of proteins , the regulation of the formation of cell organelles and the fusion of cell membranes , he received the Canada Gairdner International Award in 2009 and the Shaw Prize in 2014 . He was also accepted into the National Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

Life

Peter Walter, 2008

Peter Walter was born in 1954 in what was then West Berlin and began studying chemistry at the Free University of Berlin in 1973 . After completing his intermediate diploma , he moved to Vanderbilt University in Nashville in the United States in 1976 with a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service , where he completed his studies a year later with a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry . He then did his doctorate from 1977 to 1981 at Rockefeller University in New York in the laboratory of the later Nobel Prize winner Günter Blobel .

After completing his doctoral thesis, he stayed in Blobel's laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow before becoming an assistant professor at Rockefeller University in 1982. Just one year later, he moved to the University of California (UCB) in San Francisco , where he took on a professorship for biochemistry and biophysics and later also headed the department for biochemistry and biophysics. Since 1997 he has also been a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute .

Peter Walter is married to a chemist from Mexico and has two daughters. Like his wife, he has taken American citizenship .

Scientific work

Peter Walter (left) together with Julian Lewis, Alexander Johnson and Martin Raff , co-authors of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell

As part of his doctorate, Peter Walter discovered the Signal Recognition Particle , a ribonucleoprotein complex that is involved in protein transport into the endoplasmic reticulum of eukaryotes and into the plasma membrane of prokaryotes . The focus of the work in his laboratory at UCB was the investigation of the mechanisms of protein folding , the transport of proteins to their target locations within cells , the regulation of the size and number of organelles in the cells and the fusion of cell membranes.

Since the 1990s, he has also made fundamental contributions to the elucidation of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), a cytoprotective signaling pathway that acts as a cellular stress response in the endoplasmic reticulum to protect against errors in protein folding. He is considered a co-discoverer of the enzyme Ire1 , a serine threonine kinase and endoribonuclease of central importance in the context of the UPR, and researches, among other things, how Ire1 recognizes incorrectly folded proteins.

Peter Walter is co-author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell , published by Bruce Alberts , which is one of the most widely used standard works in the field of molecular cell biology. He is also a member of the editorial board of the journals PLoS Biology , Journal of Biology and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , and is considered a supporter of the open access concept in the publication of research results.

Thomson Reuters has been one of the favorites for a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine since 2015 .

Awards

Peter Walter received a Searle Scholar Award in 1983 and, five years later, the Young Scientist Award from the Passano Foundation and the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry , which is presented by the American Chemical Society for outstanding research in biochemistry before the age of 38. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded him a research grant ( Sloan Research Fellowship ) in 1989 .

In 2005 Peter Walter was awarded the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences from the Wiley Foundation. Four years later he received for his studies on protein folding the 100,000 Canadian dollars doped Gairdner Foundation International Award and the EB Wilson Medal , the highest scientific award of the American Society for Cell Biology. Also in 2009, the Protein Society awarded him the Stein & Moore Award . The Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology honored him in 2011 with its highest scientific award, the Otto Warburg Medal . For 2012 he was awarded the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize and the Ernst Jung Prize for Medicine. In 2014 he received half of the $ 1 million Shaw Prize for Life Sciences and Medicine and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research . For 2018, he was awarded a US $ 3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences .

Peter Walter was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2004. Since 2004 he has also been an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and since 2006 of the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . In 2016 he was President of the American Society for Cell Biology . For 2018 Walter was awarded the Van Deenen Medal . Also in 2018 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine .

Fonts (selection)

  • Molecular Biology of the Cell . 5th edition. New York 2008; German edition: Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition. Weinheim 2004 (as co-author)
  • Essential Cell Biology. 3. Edition. New York 2009 (as co-author)

literature

  • Prof. Ph.D. Peter Walter. In: Michael Kaasch, Joachim Kaasch (Red.): German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina. Newly elected members 2006. German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle (Saale) 2007, p. 52
  • ASCB Profile: Peter Walter. In: ASCB Newsletter. January 2005 edition. Edited by the American Society for Cell Biology, pp. 32-34, ISSN  1060-8982
  • Tinsley H. Davis: Profile of Peter Walter. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 103 (14) / 2006. United States National Academy of Sciences, pp. 5259-5261, ISSN  1091-6490

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The information on the life of Peter Walter is based primarily on a publication by the Leopoldina; See: Michael Kaasch and Joachim Kaasch, Halle (Saale) 2007; with additions from: ASCB Newsletter. January 2005, pp. 32-34 and PNAS. 103 (14) / 2006, pp. 5259-5261
  2. ↑ See: ASCB Newsletter. January 2005, p. 33
  3. ↑ See also: PNAS. 103 (14) / 2006, p. 5261
  4. ↑ Announcing the 2015 Citation Laureates , at Thomson Reuters.
  5. ↑ Member entry by Prof. Dr. Peter Walter (with picture) at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on June 28, 2016.
  6. ↑ National Academy of Medicine elects 85 new members. In: nam.edu. National Academy of Medicine, October 18, 2018, accessed October 20, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Walter, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American biochemist and molecular biologist
DATE OF BIRTH 5th December 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin