Joachim Lingner (born 1962) is a Swiss molecular biologist. He holds the professorship for life sciences and leads the Lingner Lab at the

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (, EPFL) is a public university, public research university in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 1969 with the mission to "train talented engineers in Switzerland". Like its sister institution E ...

(EPFL).

Career

Lingner obtained his PhD from the Biozentrum of the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

in 1992. In 1993 he joined the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a Public university, public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a Federated state, state, it is the fla ...

for postdoctoral studies under the supervision of

Thomas Cech Thomas Robert Cech (born 8 December 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of R ...

. He then joined

Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research The Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC, ) is a not-for-profit institution founded in 1964 and located in Épalinges, Switzerland. Since 1 January 2008, it is organized into two distinct entities: * The ISREC Foundation whose ...

(ISREC) in Lausanne, Switzerland, first as a junior group leader in 1997 and became senior group leader in 2002. In 2005 he was appointed as associate professor at

EPF Lausanne EPF may refer to: Computing and gaming * .epf, a file extension for CadSoft Eagle project files * Eclipse process framework, an open source project * Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force, a game released for the Nintendo DS Government programs * ...

. Since 2009, Lingner is a full professor at

Research

The Lingner Lab studies of the structure, function and maintenance of

telomere A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes (see #Sequences, Sequences). Telomeres are a widespread genetic feature most commonly found in eukaryotes. In ...

s, the

nucleoprotein Nucleoproteins are proteins conjugated with nucleic acids (either DNA or RNA). Typical nucleoproteins include ribosomes, nucleosomes and viral nucleocapsid proteins. Structures Nucleoproteins tend to be positively charged, facilitating inte ...

complexes at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes that enable chromosome stability and that regulate cellular lifespan. They elucidated how

shortening is counteracted by the

telomerase Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most euka ...

enzyme that renders cancer cells immortal. The lab discovered that telomeres are transcribed into telomeric repeat containing RNA (TERRA), which in turn regulates the telomeric chromatin structure and telomere maintenance by

and homology directed repair. Finally, they developed technologies to uncover the changes that occur in the

telomeric A telomere (; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes (see Sequences). Telomeres are a widespread genetic feature most commonly found in eukaryotes. In most, if not ...

proteome A proteome is the entire set of proteins that is, or can be, expressed by a genome, cell, tissue, or organism at a certain time. It is the set of expressed proteins in a given type of cell or organism, at a given time, under defined conditions. P ...

during aging and disease including

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

Awards and recognitions

Lingner obtained the Friedrich Miescher Prize (2002), was elected as an

EMBO Embo or EMBO may refer to: *Embo, Taguig, a grouping of barangays in Taguig, Philippines * Embo (''Star Wars''), a ''Star Wars'' fictional character *Embo S.p.A., an Italian automotive manufacturer *Embo, Sutherland, a village in Highland, Scotland ...

member (2005), and received an ERC advanced investigator award (2008), and is a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

(2020). He serves as a member of the scientific advisory board in the Center of Integrative Genomics (CIG) of the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

, and has been a member of ERC starting grant review panel.

Selected works

* Feretzaki M, Pospisilova M, Valador Fernandes R, Lunardi T, Krejci L, Lingner J. Rad51-dependent recruitment of TERRA lncRNA to telomeres through R-loops. Nature, Article, in press. * * * * * * *

References

External links

Website of the Lingner Lab
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lingner, Joachim 21st-century Swiss biologists 1962 births Living people Members of Academia Europaea Academic staff of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne University of Basel alumni