City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Knowledge-driven development of disease-specific innovative diagnostic and therapeutic solutions for unmet medical needs
Major aim of research is the knowledge-driven use of medical biotechnology tools available to translate innovative solutions for unmet medical needs also including non-cancer indications.
Major aim of research is the use of medical biotechnology including antibody technologies, protein engineering & expression to develop and evaluate knowledge-based innovative recombinant cancer-specific immunodiagnostics and -therapeutics. Main characteristics of these novel agents are: a) disease-specific activities, b) reduced unspecific side effects, and c) reduced immunogenicity. Novel fusion proteins have been designed using advanced supercomputing tools to model dynamic interactions of proteins in tight collaboration with Prof. Dr. Paolo Carloni (Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany). Recombinant fusion proteins are mainly expressed in bacterial or mammalian cells and subsequently characterized in experimental settings, both in vitro on cell lines or primary material of patients and in vivo in transgenic/tumor-bearing mouse models.
Management of a scientific research group Acquisition and coordination of national and international projects Generation of recombinant antibodies by state-of-the-art technologies for diagnostic purposes and for the development of novel human immunotoxins Education/training and supervision of graduate and undergraduate students
Management of a business field Acquisition and coordination of national and international projects Contract-based research projects together with industrial partners Project leader for S2 facility Conducting biotechnological research including development of new diagnostics and therapeutics for treatment of mainly oncologic, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases Generate intellectual property
Setting up and heading the laboratory of immunotherapy Establishment and project management of a newly established S2 facility Acquisition of national projects Conducting biotechnological research including development of novel recombinant immunotoxins for the treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma, development of quantitative PCR to follow-up clinical studies with B-cell malignancies, optimize phage display technologies to generate antibodies specifically binding to membrane fractions of tumor cells Generate intellectual property Education/training and supervision of graduate and undergraduate students