Ralf Reski
Ralf Reski (born 18 November 1958 in Gelsenkirchen) is a German Professor of Plant Biotechnology and former Dean of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Freiburg.[1] He is also affiliated to the French École supérieure de biotechnologie Strasbourg (ESBS)[2] and Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.[3]
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[edit] Biography
Ralf Reski studied Biology, Chemistry and Pedagogy at the Universities of Giessen and Hamburg. He was awarded his doctorate in Genetics in 1990 by the University of Hamburg and received his habilitation in General Botany in 1994. From 1996 until 1999, he was a Heisenberg-Fellow of the German Research Foundation.[4]
He was appointed Distinguished Professor and entitled Ordinarius at the University of Freiburg in 1999, where he became Head of the newly established Department of Plant Biotechnology.[5] From 2001 until 2011, Reski was Director Plant Biotechnology at the Centre for Applied Biosciences (ZAB, University of Freiburg).[6]
Reski is one of the founding Principal Investigators (PI) of the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies (bioss)[7] and of the Spemann Graduate School of Biology and Medicine (SGBM).[8] Since 2011, he also is Senior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS). SGBM, bioss and FRIAS are funded within the German Universities Excellence Initiative.[9] Furthermore, Reski is a founding PI of the Freiburg Initiative for Systems Biology (FRISYS)[10] funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Since 2010, Reski is coordinator of a TEMPUS-project for the improvement of Higher Education in the field of "environmental management and ecology" at the Russian Universities in Altai, Novosibirsk, Omsk and Tyumen.[11]
[edit] Research
Reski's main area of research with more than 180 scientific publications[12] comprises the genetics, proteomics, metabolism, and cell development of moss plants, using the technique of homologous recombination for creating knockout mosses by gene targeting in a reverse genetics approach.[13] Reski and his coworkers have identified hitherto unknown genes with biotechnological implication for agriculture and forestry.[14] The cultivation of moss cells and their utilization for Molecular Farming is another main focal point of his research.[15]
In 1998, Reski proposed the moss Physcomitrella patens as a model plant in biological research.[16] Since then, he has contributed significantly towards mosses becoming a model plant in biological research on a worldwide scale. In 2004, Reski and colleagues from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan successfully proposed the genome of Physcomitrella patens for complete sequencing at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a facility of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).[17] The genome was released in December 2007,[18] with the bioinformatic work spearheaded by Reski´s group[19] and financed by the German National Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG). To date, the Freiburg Chair of Plant Biotechnology hosts an online database of Physcomitrella patens comprising the genomic sequence, annotated gene models and supplemental information.[20] Due to its scientific and economic importance, the genome of Physcomitrella patens has been chosen as a “flagship plant genome” by the DOE JGI in 2010.[21]
Also in 1998, Reski and coworkers generated a knockout moss by deleting an ftsZ gene and thus identified the first gene essential in the division of an organelle in any eukaryote.[22] Based on the results of further research on the ftsZ-gene family, Ralf Reski coined the term "plastoskeleton", analogous to the term "cytoskeleton", in 2000 and presented a new concept in cell biology of how chloroplasts, the green cell organelles of plants, change shape and divide.[23][24][25]
In 1999, the chemical company BASF invested more than 30 Mio. DM in a four year cooperation project with Reski to identify new genes which may be able to make crop plants more resistant to drought, cold and attack by pests. Plants with improved nutritional value (vitamins or polyunsaturated fatty acids) have also been in the research focus of their collaboration.[26] In the same year, Reski invented the moss bioreactor[27] and founded “greenovation Biotech GmbH”,[28] a biotechnology company utilizing moss bioreactors for the production of pharmaceuticals.[29] In 2011, Reski and coworkers produced recombinant, biologically active human factor H in a moss bioreactor.[30]
In 2010, Reski established the International Moss Stock Center (IMSC), which stores and freely distributes moss strains, transgenics and ecotypes. The IMSC assigns accession numbers that can be used in scientific publications to facilitate identification and availability of the respective samples.[31]
Also in 2010, Reski and colleagues discovered a new mechanism of gene regulation; the epigenetic gene silencing by microRNAs.[32][33]
[edit] Scientific board memberships
- 2003 – to date Supervisory Board of BioPro GmbH,[34] an enterprise of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg
- 2004 – to date Advisory board BMBF program Risk assessment in Plant Biotechnology[35]
- 2007–2010 Think tank on Innovation Policy (German Innovationsrat) headed by Günther Oettinger, former Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg and now European Commissioner[36]
- 2008 – to date elected President of Deutsches Nationalkomitee Biologie (DNK, German National Committee of IUBS and IUMS within ICSU)[37]
- 2008 – to date Advisory board of German Life Sciences Association (Verband Biologie, Biowissenschaften und Biomedizin in Deutschland e.V., VBIO) [38]
- 2009 – to date elected Executive committee Member of the IUBS[39]
[edit] Editorial board memberships of scientific journals
- 2002 - to date Plant Cell Reports
- 2004 - 2006 Plant Biology (Guest-Editor)
- 2008 - to date Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology [40]
- 2009 – to date Plant Cell Reports, Editor-in-Chief [41]
- 2010 - to date Biology International [42]
[edit] References
- ^ CV Ralf Reski on University Homepage
- ^ Homepage of ESBS, German
- ^ Profile Ralf Reski on FRIAS homepage
- ^ Profile on researchgate.net
- ^ Article on Reski´s scientific career
- ^ Centre for Applied Biosciences, Plant Biotechnology
- ^ bioss homepage
- ^ Profile on SGBM homepage
- ^ Homepage University of Freiburg, Excellence Initiative
- ^ FRISYS homepage
- ^ Environmental Management for Russia (Cordis wire)
- ^ ReskiLab publications
- ^ Reski, R. (1998): Physcomitrella and Arabidopsis: the David and Goliath of reverse genetics. Trends in Plant Science 3, 209-210
- ^ Reski, R., W. Frank (2005): Moss (Physcomitrella patens) functional genomics - Gene discovery and tool development with implications for crop plants and human health. Briefings in Functional Genomics & Proteomics 4, 48-57 [1]
- ^ Decker, E.L., R. Reski (2007): Moss bioreactors producing improved biopharmaceuticals. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 18, 393-398. PMID 17869503 [2]
- ^ Reski, R. (1998): Development, genetics and molecular biology of mosses. Bot. Acta 111, 1-15 [3]
- ^ Doe Joint Genome Institute: Why sequence Physcomitrella patens?
- ^ Rensing et al. (2008): The Physcomitrella Genome Reveals Evolutionary Insights into the Conquest of Land by Plants. Science 319, 64-69. doi:10.1126/science.1150646 PMID 18079367
- ^ Article on biotechnology information platform of German Federal Ministry of Education and Research: [4]
- ^ database cosmoss.org
- ^ Hudson Alpha Genome Sequencing Center on flagship plant genomes
- ^ Strepp et al. (1998): Plant nuclear gene knockout reveals a role in plastid division for the homolog of the bacterial cell division protein FtsZ, an ancestral tubulin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 95: 4368–4373. [5]
- ^ Kiessling, J., S. Kruse, S.A. Rensing, K. Harter, E.L. Decker, R. Reski (2000): Visualization of a cytoskeleton-like FtsZ network in chloroplasts. Journal of Cell Biology 151, 945-950. [6]
- ^ McFadden, G.I. (2000): Comment: Skeleton in the closet: How do chloroplasts stay in shape?. Journal of Cell Biology 151, F19-F21. [7]
- ^ Reski, R. (2002): Rings and networks: the amazing complexity of FtsZ in chloroplasts. Trends in Plant Science 7, 103-105. [8]
- ^ http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/europe/Basf/N1462.htm
- ^ Patent “Production of proteinaceous substances”, on WIPO-database: [9]
- ^ Homepage greenovation Biotech GmbH, Profile of Ralf Reski
- ^ Decker, E.L., Reski, R. (2008): Current achievements in the production of complex biopharmaceuticals with moss bioreactor. Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering 31, 3-9. doi:10.1007/s00449-007-0151-y
- ^ Büttner-Mainik, A., J. Parsons, H. Jérome, A. Hartmann, S. Lamer, A. Schaaf, A. Schlosser, P.F. Zipfel, R. Reski, E.L. Decker (2011): Production of biologically active recombinant human factor H in Physcomitrella. Plant Biotechnology Journal 9, 373-383. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7652.2010.00552.x
- ^ IMSC press release University of Freiburg
- ^ B. Khraiwesh, M.A. Arif, G.I. Seumel, S. Ossowski, D. Weigel, R. Reski , W. Frank (2010): Transcriptional Control of Gene Expression by MicroRNAs. Cell 140,111-122. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.12.023
- ^ Discovery: microRNAs can dirtectly turn off genes
- ^ Supervisory board BioPro
- ^ Newspaper article on biosafety
- ^ Innovationsrat Baden-Württemberg
- ^ DNK-Presidency
- ^ VBIO Advisory board
- ^ IUBS board
- ^ Editorial board Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology
- ^ Editorial board Plant Cell Reports
- ^ Editorial board Biology International
[edit] External links
[edit] News articles
- "Moss bioreactors do not smell" - Interview with Professor Ralf Reski
- The first decoded moss genome: From all-conquering country dweller to producer of medicines
- An inconspicuous relative
- Protein communicates information about stress
- The conquest of land by plants
- Medicine from Moss: Bioreactor Technique May Offer Hope to People With Age-Related Blindness
