Stefan Dübel
Stefan Dübel is a German biologist. Since October 2002, he is full professor at the University of Braunschweig and head of the Biotechnology Department of the Institute of Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. His work is centred around protein engineering, phage display and recombinant antibodies.
Biography
Stefan Dübel was born January 13, 1960 in Hanau, Hessia. He studied biology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and at the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg from 1978 to 1983. He subsequently completed his civil service. From 1986 to 1989 he did his doctorate at the Centre for Molecular Biology at the University of Heidelberg. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the German Cancer Research Center and at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology at the University of Stuttgart. From 1996 to 2001 he was group leader at the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Heidelberg, where he acheived his habilitation in the lab of Ekkehard Bautz in 1997. From 2001 to 2002 he was CSO of LifeBits AG.
Scientific work
Dübels's most important work was, together with Frank Breitling, his contributions to the development of phage display for the production of human antibodies. He co-pioneered in vitro antibody selection technologies, resulting in several inventions including antibody phage display (e.g. US Patent 5849500), human antibody libraries (e.g. US Patent 6319690) and antibody libraries with randomised CDRs (e.g. US Patent 5840479). His lab continued to contribute multiple innovations to Recombinant antibodies, therapeutic antibodies, phage display, ORFeome display, animal-free antibody generation and in vitro evolution, e.g. Hyperphage technology (2001), ORFeome display (2006), and targeted RNases for cancer therapy (1995/2008). Further achievements include the development of the world's first protein knock down mouse using intrabodies (2014), a universal allosteric switch module for antibody affinity (2017) and multiclonal antibodies (2019). His work resulted in >240 publications and >25 patent applications.
Professional activities
He is co-founder of several biotech companies in the field of recombinant antibodies, including a company for the animal-free production of antibodies (Abcalis) and the human therapeutic antibody discovery and antibody engineering companyYumab. He further serves as director of the technology transfer unit "Centre for Molecular Engineering" of iTUBSmbH and as consultant to biotech / pharma companies and US/EU goverment institutions. He initiated the "Antibody factory" of the German National Gemome Research Network. Together with Frank Breitling he is the author of the first German-language textbook on recombinant antibodies (translated to english in 1995[1]), together with Roland Kontermann the laboratory protocol collection "Antibody Engineering"[2] and together with Janice Reichert he is editor of the multi-volume Handbook of Therapeutic Antibodies[3]. Together with Michael Hust and Gundram Jung he initiated the Corona Antibody Team (CORAT), which develops neutralizing human antibodies for the treatment of COVID-19, and from which CORAT Therapeutics GmbH emerged with the support of the state of Lower Saxony.
Awards and honours
- 2013 Entrepreneurship Award of the TU Braunschweig and Ostfalia
- 2014 LehrLEO Award for good teaching at TU Braunschweig
- 2015 Innovation in Biotechnology Award of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS)
- 2016 Technology Transfer Prize of the IHK Braunschweig
- 2017 1st prize of the Lower Saxony Innovation Network
- 2018 winner of the Go-BIO competition (with the NordenVaccines team) for a tick vaccine - link
- 2019 Innovation Award of the German BioRegions (with the NordenVaccines team) for the tick vaccine
External links
References
- Recombinant antibodies (English ed.). John Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-17847-7.
- Antibody engineering (2nd ed.). Springer. ISBN 978-3-642-01146-7.
- Handbook of Therapeutic Antibodies. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-3-527-32937-3.