Jan O. Korbel (born 1975) is a German scientist working in the fields of

human genetics Human genetics is the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population gene ...

, genomics and computational biology.

Education

After receiving his PhD in 2005 from

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

, he pursued his postdoctoral research at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, New Haven, Connecticut (USA).

Research and career

He is a tenured

principal investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial. The phrase is also often us ...

and Heading the Data Science Centre at the

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

(EMBL)

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, Germany. He is also a senior scientist in the Genome Biology Unit at the EMBL, is leading a bridging research division at the

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

(DKFZ), and is a honorary professor ("Honorarprofessor") at Heidelberg University. A particular focus of the Korbel group is on investigating a particular form of

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral repl ...

, genomic structural variation, which includes deletions, inversions and more complex

chromosomal rearrangement In genetics, a chromosomal rearrangement is a mutation that is a type of chromosome abnormality involving a change in the structure of the native chromosome. Such changes may involve several different classes of events, like deletions, duplica ...

s such as

chromothripsis Chromothripsis is a mutational process by which up to thousands of clustered chromosomal rearrangements occur in a single event in localised and confined genomic regions in one or a few chromosomes, and is known to be involved in both cancer and ...

events that can occur in healthy individuals and in context of disease. His group's principal research objective is to understand genomic structural variations as a basis of

phenotypic variation In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological prop ...

and cancer development. In addition to his research activities, Jan Korbel is promoting interdisciplinary dialogues in

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, m ...

, and the application of genome sequencing in Genomic Medicine.

Awards and recognition

He received several academic prizes, including: * the Chica and Heinz Schaller Research Award (2014), * the Manfred-Fuchs-Prize for his bioethical research (2015), * the 2018 HMLS Investigator Award, * and the Pezcoller Foundation–EACR Cancer Researcher Award (2018). He is an elected member of Germany's National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2015) and of the

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) (2016). He is also a fellow of the European Academy of Cancer Sciences. Jan Korbel is also a European Research Council (ERC) investigator.

References

External links

*https://www.embl.de/research/units/genome_biology/korbel/index.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Korbel, Jan O. 1975 births Living people German geneticists German bioinformaticians Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina