User:YosDav/Christian Speck draft

Christian Speck
Born	03 October 1970 Berlin, Germany
Nationality	German
Citizenship	German, British
Occupation	Research scientist
Known for	Identification of key mechanisms in the MCM2-7 helicase loading and activation pathway
Title	Professor
Awards	Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB, 2015) Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (2015)
Academic background
Alma mater	Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin (Diplom-Ingenieur in Biotechnology, 1991 – 1995) Freie Universität Berlin (Diplom in Biochemistry, 1995 – 1997) Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics (PhD in Biochemistry, 1997 – 2000)
Thesis	ATP- und ADP-DnaA-Protein : neue Modelle und Mechanismen zur Regulation der dnaA-Transkription und zur Initiation der DNA-Replikation [ATP- and ADP-DnaA: New models and mechanisms of dnaA transcription and initiation of DNA replication] (2000)
Academic advisors	Walter Messer (PhD) Bruce Stillman (Postdoc)
Academic work
Discipline	Biochemistry
Sub-discipline	Cryo-EM, epigenetics, high resolution genomics
Institutions	Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2000 – 2006) MRC Clinical Science Centre (2006 – 2013) Institute of Clinical Sciences, Imperial College London (2013 – present)
Main interests	Chromatin structure, DNA replication, drug development
Website	Research lab Imperial College London profile ORCID

Christian Speck (born 03 October 1970) is a German biochemist, biotechnologist and leading interdisciplinary research scientist in DNA replication.  He is Full Professor and Chair of Genome Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and leader of the DNA Replication Group in the Faculty of Medicine at the Institute of Clinical Sciences at the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College London.  Speck’s research group studies the mechanisms in genome stability and epigenetics, with a particular interest in disease associated with these processes and the development of novel DNA replication inhibitors for therapeutic purposes.

Education, training and career

Speck was awarded a Diplom-Ingenieur degree in Biotechnology in 1995 from Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin and a Diplom in Biochemistry in 1997 from Freie Universität Berlin, from which he also received his PhD in Biochemistry in 2000 for his work on bacterial gene regulation and DNA replication, undertaken as a Max-Planck Society PhD Fellow in the laboratory of Walter Messer at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin.  In 2001, Speck was awarded a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Fellowship to do postdoctoral work on the reconstitution and characterisation of the ORC-Cdc6-origin DNA complex in Saccharomyces cerevisiae with Bruce Stillman’s group, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Since 2006, Speck has lead the DNA Replication Group, initially at the now defunct Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Sciences Centre, and, since 2013, at the Institute of Clinical Sciences at Imperial College London.  He was appointed lecturer in 2013, reader in 2015, and Full Professor and Chair of Genome Biochemistry & Molecular Biology in 2016.  In 2015, Christian received a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB). He has served on numerous scientific evaluation panels (ANR, DAAD, Horizon 2020) and editorial boards, and, as the chair of the Athena SWAN opportunities committee, actively supported gender equality in research. He is a founding member of the London consortium for cryo-EM (LonCEM)[8] and  established the staffed cryo-EM facility at the Hammersmith Campus of Imperial College London.

Research

Speck’s group is focussed on discovering new mechanisms in initiation of DNA replication and to understand the function of replication factors in hetero-chromatin formation. The lab is using an integrative approach involving biochemical, genetic, genomic, structural, and molecular methods to obtain a holistic understanding of the underlying biological processes, uncover novel mechanisms and regulatory principles, and develop specific therapeutic inhibitors for disease associated with these processes.

The group has reconstituted the loading of the eukaryotic replicative helicase onto DNA1 — an essential step in DNA replication — and has used this system to address the mechanism and regulation of two key events: 1) the stepwise loading of the eukaryotic DNA helicase onto DNA, and 2) the kinase-dependent activation of the helicase.  In more recent years, Speck has developed an interest in investigating the role of helicase loading factors in epigenetic memory, which has important implications for human disease and ageing.