Thomas Tuschl

Thomas Tuschl (born June 1, 1966 in Altdorf near Nuremberg ) is a German biochemist and molecular biologist who works in the field of RNA research.

Life

After studying chemistry in Regensburg and Grenoble , Tuschl received his doctorate with a doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen in 1995. He then spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge , USA.

In 1999 he returned to Göttingen as a group leader, this time to the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry . There he achieved international renown in the field of genetic research when in 2001 he and his working group developed the method of RNA interference , which as an artificial intervention previously did not work in vertebrates, also for human cells. This makes it possible to “ switch off” individual genes by introducing synthetically produced short RNA strands into the cell , destroying the relevant mRNA there and thus deactivating a single gene. Possible future applications of this method can be found in the treatment of tumors or hereditary diseases . The function of individual genes can also be better researched in this way. RNA interference is therefore considered to be a groundbreaking process in genetic research.

In 2003 Tuschl accepted an appointment as professor and laboratory manager at Rockefeller University in New York, where he has continued his research ever since. There he is particularly concerned with micro-RNA , small RNA sections that are formed by a cell itself and cause RNA interference there, similar to the synthetic RNA strands introduced. In 2009 he was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

At the beginning of 2009, Tuschl refused an offer to the FU Berlin for a Humboldt professorship, which led to a public dispute between the researcher and the university management, as they did not want to meet his requirements for laboratory equipment and assistant positions.

While an article by Stern in 2004 saw him "on the way to the Nobel Prize", Tuschl missed out on the 2006 award, which honored work on RNA interference ( Andrew Z. Fire , Craig Mello ), which his mentor Phillip Allen Sharp did commented with "Life is not fair".

Prices

Tuschl has received several national and international awards for his work.

• 2008: Ernst Jung Prize
• 2007: Max Delbrück Medal , Berlin
• 2007: Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize
• 2005: Ernst Schering Prize , Berlin
• 2005: Meyenburg Prize , Heidelberg
• 2005: Dr. Albert Wander Memorial Prize, Bern, Switzerland
• 2003: Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology, New York, USA
• 2003: Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences , The Wiley Foundation, USA
• 2003: Newcomb Cleveland Prize , American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA
• 2002: Eppendorf Young Investigator Award, Hamburg
• 2002: Klung Wilhelmy Weberbank Prize , Berlin
• 1999: BioFuture award winner

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elbashir SM, Harborth J., Lendeckel W., Yalcin A., Weber K., Tuschl T .: Duplexes of 21-nucleotide RNAs mediate RNA interference in cultured mammalian cells, Nature, Volume 411, 2001, pp. 494-498
2. ^ Member entry by Thomas Tuschl at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.
3. ↑ Tagesspiegel: "Affenzirkus" - top researchers give the FU a basket , March 2, 2009.
4. ↑ Stern : Genetic Research: Thomas Tuschl - On the Way to the Nobel Prize , July 19, 2004.
5. ↑ Sascha Karberg : " Ten years ago Andrew Fire and Craig Mello had an unheard-of idea " In: Die Zeit , October 2006.

Web links

• Literature by and about Thomas Tuschl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Interview with Spektrum der Wissenschaft, published by Spiegel Online. September 2008
• Interview with Thomas Tuschl in sciencegarden
• Researcher's website