Thomas A. Bickle

Thomas A. Bickle (2002)

Thomas Anthony Bickle (born December 23, 1940 in Norfolk , England ) is a British - Swiss microbiologist .

Life

Thomas A. Bickle studied biology at the University of Geneva . He received his doctorate in 1972 from the University of California in Davis , where he subsequently worked as an assistant. His dissertation was entitled Studies on the Protein Composition of Ribosomes . A year later he came to the Biozentrum of the University of Basel as part of a European Molecular Biology Organization long term fellowship . Here he was appointed Associate Professor of Microbiology in 1980 and Full Professor in 1990. In addition to his research and teaching activities, Bickle also acted as chairman of the Biozentrum and dean of the natural science faculty. In 2005 he retired .

Act

Thomas A. Bickle researched the mode of action of bacterial DNA restriction and modification systems. These systems protect bacteria from the penetration of foreign DNA , either freely present or packaged in bacterial viruses . So-called restriction enzymes ( endonucleases ) recognize foreign DNA and inactivate it through endonucleolytic cleavage. In Escherichia coli, Bickle clarified the exact mechanism by which these enzymes differentiate between their own and foreign DNA. He identified DNA recognition sites for various restriction enzymes and examined their structure. He was also able to prove that many bacterial viruses have a defense mechanism that prevents the restriction.

Awards

• 1980 elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization EMBO
• 1985 member of the Swiss Commission for Molecular Biology

Publications (selection)

• N. Spoerel, P. Herrlich, TA Bickle: A novel bacteriophage defense mechanism: the anti-restriction protein. In: Nature , 1979, 278, pp. 30-34, PMID 763348
• NE Murray, JA Gough, B. Suri, TA Bickle: Structural homologies among type I restriction-modification systems. EMBO J., 1, 535-539., And, (1982). Structural homologies among type I restriction-modification systems . In: EMBO J. , 1, pp. 535-539, PMID 6329689 .
• A. Meisel, TA Bickle, DH Krüger, C. Schroeder: Type III restriction enzymes need two inversely oriented recognition sites for DNA cleavage. In: Nature , 1992, 355, pp. 467-469, PMID 1734285
• A. Meisel, P. Mackeldanz, TA Bickle, DH Krüger, C. Schroeder: Type III restriction endonucleases translocate DNA in a reaction driven by recognition site-specific ATP hydrolysis. In: EMBO J. , 1995, 14, pp. 2958-2966, PMID 7796821
• D. Panne, SA Müller, S. Wirtz, A. Engel, TA Bickle: The McrBC restriction endonuclease assembles into a ring structure in the presence of G nucleotides. In: EMBO J. , 2001, 20, pp. 3210-3217, PMID 11406597

Web links

• Emeriti Biozentrum University of Basel
• Thomas Bickle ResearchGate
• Thomas Bickle Swiss National Science Foundation
• Thomas A. Bickle, Markus Streiff: Methods for Purification of Restriction Enzymes . Google Books

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DH Krüger, TA Bickle: Bacteriophage survival: multiple mechanisms for avoiding the deoxyribonucleic acid restriction systems of their hosts. In: Microbiological reviews. Volume 47, Number 3, September 1983, pp. 345-360, PMID 6314109 , PMC 281580 (free full text) (review).