Stefan Dübel (; born 13 January 1960 in

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

, Hesse) is a German biologist. Since October 2002, he has been a full professor at the

University of Braunschweig TU Braunschweig (, unofficially ''University of Braunschweig – Institute of Technology'') is the oldest ' (comparable to an institute of technology in the American system) in Germany. It was founded in 1745 as Collegium Carolinum and is a membe ...

and head of the Biotechnology Department of the Institute of Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics. His work is centred around

protein engineering Protein engineering is the process of developing useful or valuable proteins through the design and production of unnatural polypeptides, often by altering amino acid sequences found in nature. It is a young discipline, with much research taking pl ...

phage display Phage display is a laboratory technique for the study of protein–protein, protein–peptide, and protein–DNA interactions that uses bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) to connect proteins with the genetic information that encodes ...

and recombinant antibodies.

Biography

Dübel studied biology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and at the

Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

in Heidelberg from 1978 to 1983. He subsequently completed his civil service. From 1986 to 1989 he was promoted

Dr. rer. nat. for, la, Doctor rerum naturalium, Doctor of Natural Sciences, paren=left, ), abbreviated Dr. rer. nat., is a doctoral academic degree awarded by universities in some European countries (e.g. Germany, Austria and Czech Republic) to graduates in phy ...

with a thesis titled: ''Cell Cycle Regulation and Cell Differentiation in the Coelenterate Hydra'' at the Centre for Molecular Biology at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the

German Cancer Research Center The German Cancer Research Center (known as the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum or simply DKFZ in German language, German) is a national cancer research center based in Heidelberg, Germany. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German ...

and at the Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology at the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

. From 1996 to 2001 he was group leader at the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Heidelberg, where he achieved his habilitation in the lab of Ekkehard Bautz in 1997. From 2001 to 2002 he was CSO of LifeBits AG.

Scientific work

Dübel's most important work was, together with Frank Breitling, his contributions to the development of

for the production of human antibodies. He co-pioneered in vitro antibody selection technologies, resulting in several inventions including antibody phage display, human antibody libraries ) and antibody libraries with randomised CDRs. His lab continued to contribute multiple innovations to Recombinant antibodies,

therapeutic antibodies Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have varied therapeutic uses. It is possible to create a mAb that binds specifically to almost any extracellular target, such as cell surface proteins and cytokines. They can be used to render their target ineffective ...

, 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 In molecular biology, an intrabody (from ''intracellular'' and ''antibody'') is an antibody that works within the cell to bind to an intracellular protein. Due to the lack of a reliable mechanism for bringing antibodies into a living cell from the ...

(2014), a universal allosteric switch module for antibody affinity (2017) and multiclonal antibodies (2019). In 2020, he was one of the initiators o
CORAT (Corona Antibody Team)
which aims to cure COVID-19 with neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

Awards and honours

* 2015 Innovation in Biotechnology Award of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists * 2016 Technology Transfer Prize of the IHK Braunschweig * 2019 Innovation Award of the German BioRegions for the

tick Ticks are parasitic arachnids of the order Ixodida. They are part of the mite superorder Parasitiformes. Adult ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length depending on age, sex, and species, but can become larger when engorged. Ticks a ...

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifi ...

* 2020 Two Innovation Awards of the State of Lower Saxony for Abcalis and Corat * 2022 ECEAE Prize for animal-free antibodies

Bibliography

* * * * These are the top 5 most cited papers authored or co-author by Dübel: * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dubel, Stefan Living people Academic staff of TU Braunschweig 1960 births People from Hanau Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz alumni Heidelberg University alumni University of Stuttgart alumni 20th-century German biologists 21st-century German biologists