Willem Stemmer

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Willem PC "Pim" Stemmer (* around 1957 in the Netherlands; † April 2, 2013 ) was a Dutch molecular biologist and company founder.

Live and act

Stemmer went to the Montana boarding school on the Zugerberg in Switzerland (graduated in 1975) and studied biology at the University of Amsterdam , where he received his doctorate in 1980. He then went to the University of Wisconsin – Madison , where he turned to molecular biology and received his PhD again under Fred Blattner in 1985 (Ph. D.). The subject of the dissertation was the pili of bacteria and their pathogenic role. He was a scientist at Hybritech (antibody fragmentation technology for the treatment of colon cancer) and then a senior scientist at Affymax. He is known for various inventions, each of which he used commercially with the establishment of companies. In 1993 he invented DNA Shuffling (also known as Molecular Breeding ) at Affymax , a method of obtaining new DNA combinations with directed evolution. In order to exploit the invention, he was one of the co-founders of Maxygen (1997).

As a spin-off from Maxygen, Verdia (acquired by DuPont in 2004 ) and Codexis (which went public in 2010) emerged.

In 2001 he invented avimers , artificial proteins that, like antibodies, specifically bind to certain antigens . To evaluate the invention, he founded Avidia , whose chief scientist he was until 2005 and which was taken over by Amgen in 2006 .

Most recently he was CEO of Amunix in Mountain View , which he founded with Volker Schellenberger. The company evaluated an invention from Stemmer to increase the serum half-life of protein-based drugs in the blood by coupling the active substance to a hydrophilic protein chain (XTEN) (called XTENylation), which increases the hydrodynamic radius in the blood, and so on bypassing too early filtering in the kidneys. In 2008 they formed a subsidiary, Versartis, with Index Ventures, to conduct clinical studies for drugs (growth hormone deficiency) developed with the XTEN technology, and a subsidiary, Diartis, for a drug for type 2 diabetes.

He published 68 papers and held over 100 US patents.

In 2011 he and Frances Arnold received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for pioneering work in the application of controlled evolution for various pharmaceutical and chemical products (especially DNA shuffling). In 2000 he received the Doisy Award and in 2001 the David Perlman Award.

Fonts

  • Rapid Evolution of a Protein in Vitro by DNA Shuffling. Nature 370, 1994, 389-391.
  • DNA Shuffling by Random Fragmentation and Reassembly: In vitro Recombination for Molecular Evolution. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1994, 91, 10747-10751
  • with A. Crameri, S.-A. Raillard: DNA Shuffling of a Family of Genes from Diverse Species Accelerates Directed Evolution. Nature, 391, 1998, pp. 288-290.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. with Alejandro Zaffaroni , Russell Howard, Isaac Stein
  2. Laudation Draper Prize