Job Dekker is a Dutch biologist. Dekker is a professor in the Department of

Systems Biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

, and the Department of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and Molecular

Biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

at the

University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School is a public medical school in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is part of the University of Massachusetts system. It is home to three schools: the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Grad ...

and an Investigator at the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

. Dekker studied molecular genetics and biochemistry as an undergraduate at

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

, where he also obtained a Ph.D. in Physiological Chemistry in 1997. During his postdoctoral studies in

Nancy Kleckner Nancy Kleckner is the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology at Harvard University and principal investigator at the Kleckner Laboratory at Harvard University. Education Nancy Kleckner worked with Matt Meselson as an undergraduate at Ha ...

’s lab at Harvard University, Dekker developed a method, called chromosome conformation capture, for identifying a matrix of the pair-wise interactions between different sites of

chromatin Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important roles in r ...

and inferring the spatial folding of

chromosomes A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...

from this information. Dekker's work has led to insights into how genomes are folded in three dimensions, the mechanisms that cells employ to fold chromosomes, and how chromosome folding contributes to

gene regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wide ...

and

chromosome segregation Chromosome segregation is the process in eukaryotes by which two sister chromatids formed as a consequence of DNA replication, or paired homologous chromosomes, separate from each other and migrate to opposite poles of the nucleus. This segregation ...

. Awarded the

Edward Novitski Prize The Edward Novitski Prize is awarded by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) to recognize an extraordinary level of creativity and intellectual ingenuity in solving significant problems in genetics research. Named in honor of Drosophila geneticis ...

in 2018, and the

Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. Structure It currently has around 7000 members, two-thirds in the UK. It is affiliated with th ...

International Award in 2018. Dekker is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(2022), and the National Academy of Medicine (2021).

References

External links

*
www.dekkerlab.org
Dutch biochemists Utrecht University alumni UMass Chan Medical School faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Members of the National Academy of Medicine {{Netherlands-scientist-stub