Susan M. Gasser

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Susan Margaret Gasser (born March 29, 1955 in Oregon ) is a Swiss molecular biologist .

Life

Susan Gasser studied biophysics at the University of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in 1979 and did her doctorate in 1982 under Gottfried Schatz in biochemistry at the University of Basel ( Biozentrum Basel ). She was a post-doctoral student at the University of Geneva and from 1986 to 2001 group leader (first junior, from 1991 senior group leader) at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Epalinges . From 2001 she was a full professor of molecular biology at the University of Geneva. From 2004 to 2019 she was director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel. There she heads a research group. She has been a professor at the University of Basel since 2005.

She is married to James Gasser.

plant

Susan Gasser deals with cell differentiation, that is, how stem cells become different cell types such as heart and nerve cells. To do this, she examines the movement of chromosomes and other cell nucleus components that are marked with fluorescent dyes. The yeast S. cerevisiae and the worm C. elegans serve as model organisms . She is particularly interested in epigenetics , i.e. the role of environmental influences (nutrients, temperature, stress, etc.) on gene regulation, which she calls the “memory of cells”. She deals with chromatin complexes , their dynamics and their role in DNA repair and DNA replication and the role of special chromatin segments that influence and control their organization in the cell (transient long-range interactions (TAD), stable condensates of heterochromatin (LAD)) . Among other things, she showed that active and inactive genes in the chromatin complexes are separated by proteins.

Honors and memberships

In 1991 she received the Swiss National Latsis Prize . In 1993 she became a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and in 1998 a member of the Academia Europaea . In 2006 she received the Gregor Mendel Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Otto Naegeli Prize . In 2007 she was entered in the Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine section under matriculation no. 7173 member of the Leopoldina and in 2005 external member of the Académie des Sciences . In 2012 she received the Women in Science Award from the European Molecular Biology Organization and the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) and in 2013 the Weizmann Women in Science Award . In 2011 she received the Prix ​​International de l'INSERM and in 2009 the Nucleic Acid Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry . She has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2009 and of the Swiss Academy for Medical Sciences since 2006.

In 2014 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lausanne and in 2016 an honorary doctorate from the Charles University in Prague.

In 2018 she became a member of the ETH Board. She is also on the Council of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, the Francis Crick Institute in London and the EMBL in Heidelberg. She heads the Equal Opportunities Commission at the Swiss National Fund (SNSF). She has been on the board of the Novartis Genome Institute since 2014 and on the Nestlé Nutrition Council since 2008 .

Fonts (selection)

  • with G. Daum, G. Schatz: Import of proteins into mitochondria. Energy-dependent uptake of precursors by isolated mitochondria, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Volume 257, 1982, pp. 13034-13041
  • with R. Hay, P. Böhni: ​​How mitochondria import proteins, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, Volume 779, 1984, pp. 65-87
  • with UK Laemmli: Cohabitation of scaffold binding regions with pstream / enhancer elements of three developmentally regulated genes of D. melanogaster, Cell, Volume 46, 1986, pp. 521-530
  • with T. Laroche, UK Laemmli u. a .: Metaphase chromosome structure. Involvement of topoisomerase II, J. Mol. Biol., Vol. 188, 1986, pp. 613-629
  • with UK Laemmli: A glimpse at chromosomal order, Trends in Genetics, Volume 3, 1987, pp. 16-22
  • with F. Palladino a. a .: SIR3 and SIR4 proteins are required for the positioning and integrity of yeast telomeres, Cell, Volume 75, 1993, pp. 543-555
  • with A. Hecht, M. Grunstein a. a .: Histone H3 and H4 N-termini interact with SIR3 and SIR4 proteins: a molecular model for the formation of heterochromatin in yeast, Cell, Volume 80, 1995, pp. 583-592
  • with M. Gotta u. a .: The clustering of telomeres and colocalization with Rap1, Sir3, and Sir4 proteins in wild-type Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Journal of Cell Biology, Volume 134, 1996, pp. 1349-1363
  • with BK Kennedy, L. Guarente a. a .: Redistribution of silencing proteins from telomeres to the nucleolus is associated with extension of life span in S. cerevisiae, Cell, Volume 89, 1997, pp. 381-391
  • with T. Laroche a. a .: Mutation of yeast Ku genes disrupts the subnuclear organization of telomeres, Current biology, Volume 8, 1998, pp. 653-657
  • with SG Martin, T. Laroche, N. Suka, M. Grunstein: Relocalization of telomeric Ku and SIR proteins in response to DNA strand breaks in yeast, Cell, Volume 97, 1999, pp. 621-633
  • with P. Heun u. a .: Chromosome dynamics in the yeast interphase nucleus, Science, Volume 294, 2001, pp. 2181-2186
  • with JA Cobb u. a .: DNA polymerase stabilization at stalled replication forks requires Mec1 and the RecQ helicase Sgs1, EMBO Journal, Volume 22, 2003, pp. 4325-4336
  • with H. van Attikum, O. Fritsch, B. Hohn: Recruitment of the INO80 complex by H2A phosphorylation links ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling with DNA double-strand break repair, Cell, Volume 119, 2004, pp. 777-788
  • with D. Sage, FR Neumann, F. Hediger, M. Unser: Automatic tracking of individual fluorescence particles: application to the study of chromosome dynamics, IEEE transactions on Image Processing, Volume 14, 2005, pp. 1372-1383
  • with A. Taddei u. a .: Nuclear pore association confers optimal expression levels for an inducible yeast gene, Nature, Volume 441, 2006, pp. 774-778
  • with A. Akhtar: The nuclear envelope and transcriptional control, Nature Reviews Genetics, Volume 8, 2007, pp. 507-517
  • with S. Nagai, NJ Krogan a. a .: Functional targeting of DNA damage to a nuclear pore-associated SUMO-dependent ubiquitin ligase, Science, Volume 322, 2008, pp. 597-602
  • with H. Van Attikum: Crosstalk between histone modifications during the DNA damage response, Trends in Cell Biology, Volume 19, 2009, pp. 207-217
  • with BD Towbin u. a .: Step-wise methylation of histone H3K9 positions heterochromatin at the nuclear periphery, Cell, Volume 150, 2012, pp. 934-947

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Library of Congress Authority File
  2. ^ Entry by Gasser at the Leopoldina
  3. ↑ Prof. Dr. Susan M. Gasser, Director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute, Base , gensuisse, March 2012
  4. ^ ETH Board members
personal data
SURNAME Gasser, Susan M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gasser, Susan Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-Swiss molecular biologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Oregon